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 ~

Ideas

Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.

~ John Steinbeck ~
Photo by Richard Taylor.

Keep Your Eyes and Ears Open!

We learn simply by the exposure of living. Much that passes for education is not education at all but ritual. The fact is that we are being educated when we know it least.

~ David P. Gardner ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Cats come and go without ever leaving.

~ Martha Curtis ~







Photo by Ian Southwell.

An Apt Simile

A writer is like a bag lady going through life with a sack and a pointed stick collecting stuff.

~ Tony Hillerman ~

Poetry Friday

A work of art is above all an adventure of the mind.

~ Eugene Ionesco ~\






Photo by Philippe Alès courtesy Wikimedia.

Put Your Glasses On!

Where there is no vision,
there is no hope.

~ George Washington Carver ~




Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Only a Half Day Late

I nearly forgot to post today! So this one is for me! --KK


Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders.

~ Friedrich Nietzsche ~

Or Power Hungry

It's not going to do any good to land on Mars if we're stupid.

~ Ray Bradbury ~
Image courtesy NASA.

Museums

Museums are managers of consciousness. They give us an interpretation of history, of how to view the world and locate ourselves in it. They are, if you want to put it in positive terms, great educational institutions. If you want to put it in negative terms, they are propaganda machines.

~ Hans Haacke ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

The beauty of the cat is very deceptive, for under the grace of the furry exterior lie concealed steel-like muscles.

~ Carl Van Vechten ~
"Black Cat at a Windowsill" [1902] by Constantin Alexeevich Korovin, courtesy The Athenaeum.

And So It Remains Today--Delusion Runs Deep

Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

~ John Steinbeck ~



Photo courtesy Nobel Foundation.

Poetry Friday

Well, don’t you think there comes a time when everyone, not just a poet, wants to get beyond the Self? To reach, if you like, the "god" within you?

~ James Merrill ~



Photo courtesy Wikipedia.

Few People Understand This

A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery ~
Photo of 50 franc banknote courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Pirates Tell Terrible Jokes

Q: Where does a pirate play ball?

A: In the backyaaaaarrd!



Illustration courtesy openclipart.

Treasure!

"And let me say here, I know that no one escaped alive from our vessel except myself and those that were taken by the man-of-war. And those were all executed as pirates,--so I know that no other man knows of this treasure except myself and it must be and is where we buried it until to-day and unless you get it through this statement it will remain there always and do no one any good.

"Therefore, it is your duty to trace it up and get it for your own benefit, as well as others, so delay not, but act as soon as possible.

"I will now describe the places, locations, marks etc., etc., so plainly that it can be found, without any trouble.

"The first is a sum of one million and a half dollars--($1,500,000)--"

~ Richard Le Gallienne from Pieces of Eight ~

So Sad...

As free and crazy as we want to be, and how much we want to make the world a canvas, there's also a part of us that doesn't want to make any mark.

Gerard Way

Sunday Kat Kwote

Crazy Cat Lady Approved.

Found at Archie McPhee & Co.

Avoiding Stupid Things

...when your aim is to conduct a responsive and responsible foreign policy, the avoidance of stupid things is often the avoidance of bloodshed and unforeseen strife. History suggests that it is not a mantra to be derided or dismissed.

~ David Remnick ~

Poetry Friday

A bad poem is full of English literature.

~ William Carlos Williams ~

Sincerity

A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.

~ Oscar Wilde ~




Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Gifts

If I were Queen of the World, I would decree that all students be given the gifts of time and books they want to read throughout their schooling...

~ Valerie Strauss ~

The Key to Everything

Intuition is the key to everything, in painting, filmmaking, business--everything. I think you could have an intellectual ability, but if you can sharpen your intuition, which they say is emotion and intellect joining together, then a knowingness occurs.

~ David Lynch ~

Screenwriting

The challenge of screenwriting is to say much in little and then take half of that little out and still preserve an effect of leisure and natural movement.

~ Raymond Chandler ~
Photo courtesy The Telegraph.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

The cat always leaves her mark upon her friend.

~ Spanish proverb ~
[And I have the scars to prove it! --KK]

Photo by Finn Frode.

Don't Be Bamboozled!

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.

~ Carl Sagan ~

Poetry Friday

Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks.

~ Plutarch ~

Chicken Soup

Almost every culture has its own variation on chicken soup, and rightly so--it's one of the most gratifying dishes on the face of the Earth.

~ Yotam Ottolenghi ~
Note: when KK was growing up, Campbell's was how you defined chicken soup. Sad, but true.

Warhol illustration courtesy artswallpapers.org.

Again With the Chickens

Q. What do you call a chicken crossing the road?

A. Poultry in motion.

~ Unknown ~
Photo by feeb.

It's National Chicken Month!

I did not become a vegetarian for my health, I did it for the health of the chickens.

~ Isaac Bashevis Singer ~
Illustration courtesy openclipart.

Something to Remember on Labor Day

Child labor and poverty are inevitably bound together and if you continue to use the labor of children as the treatment for the social disease of poverty, you will have both poverty and child labor to the end of time.

~ Grace Abbott ~
Photo by Lewis Wickes Hine, courtesy Library of Congress.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

The yellow tom-cat, sunk in shifting fur,
Changes and dreams, a phosphorescent blur.

~ Yvor Winters from "Sonnet to the Moon" ~

Photo by Kerri Lee Smith.

Kindness

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.

~ Dalai Lama ~
Photo by ruminatrix.

Poetry Friday

My school was the great poets: I read, and I read, and I read.

~ Mary Oliver ~
Photo by moirabot.

A Great Film

Every great film should seem new every time you see it.

~ Roger Ebert ~



Photo courtesy NY Daily News.

Duck!

If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family Anatidae on our hands.

~ Douglas Adams ~
Photo by Michael.

Butterfly?

Illustration courtesy openclipart.

Every Day Can Be Back to School Time!

Sunday's Kat Kwote

I have my favorite cat, who is my paperweight, on my desk while I am writing.

~ Ray Bradbury ~

Photo from RayBradbury.com/.

The Best Advice Ever!

If you are going to learn from other writers don't only read the great ones, because if you do that you'll get so filled with despair and the fear that you'll never be able to do anywhere near as well as they did that you'll stop writing. I recommend that you read a lot of bad stuff, too. It's very encouraging. "Hey, I can do so much better than this." Read the greatest stuff but read the stuff that isn't so great, too. Great stuff is very discouraging.

~ Edward Albee ~

Poetry Friday

I am so aching to write
The I could make a song out of a chess-board
And rhyme the intrigues of knights and bishops
And the hollow fate of a checkmated king.

~ Amy Lowell from "Still Life"~

Image courtesy openclipart.

Watch Out for Flying Ukeleles

Hawaii is paradise. It sounds cheesy to say it, but there's music in the air there.

~ Bruno Mars ~
Photo by Grant Palmer.

Pioneer Aviator

The course of the flight up and down was exceedingly erratic, partly due to the irregularity of the air, and partly to lack of experience in handling this machine.

~ Orville Wright ~
Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Old Movies

Nostalgia, the vice of the aged. We watch so many old movies our memories come in monochrome.

~ Angela Carter ~

In Other Words--A Frat Party

A zombie film is not fun without a bunch of stupid people running around and observing how they fail to handle the situation.

~ George A. Romero ~




Movie poster courtesy Wikipedia.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

The painter and his cats were inseparable and his Minette was always by his side. Sometimes she would sit upon his knees while kittens perched on his shoulders and rather than disturb his friends he would remain in one attitude for hours.

~ Carl Van Vechten, describing the painter, Gottfried Mind ~
Painting by Gottfried Mind, courtesy Wikipedia.

On the Road to Disaster

Gray economy workers are at risk for low self-esteem, anxiety disorders, substance abuse, and depression. Authors of a recent study in Michigan found that chronic job insecurity was a stronger predictor of poor health than either smoking or hypertension, potentially shaving years off a person's lifespan. For society as a whole, the loss of tax revenues is devastating to education, infrastructure and every kind of investment in our future. The poor health of gray economy workers creates a public health crisis. Businesses that play by the rules have a more difficult time competing, and basic trust in a fair playing field diminishes. Poverty and inequality are exacerbated.

~ Lynn Parramore ~

Poetry Friday

I unexpectedly came across this on Tuesday and thought, "What a great quote for the Poetry Friday ending to a Kurious Kitty week of restaurants and cooking!"

Recipes are like poems; they keep what kept us. And good cooks are like poets; they know how to count.

~ Henri Coulette ~

And That's Not Good!

The problem is when that fun stuff becomes the habit. And I think that's what's happened in our culture. Fast food has become the everyday meal.

~ Michelle Obama ~
Official White House photo by Chuck Kennedy.