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Together we have stepped into history and are now living inside an event unprecedented in our lifetime. Every day the news provides us with dizzying information that a few weeks before would have been unthinkable. What deranged and divided us a month ago seems, at best, an embarrassment from an idle and privileged time. We have become eyewitnesses to a catastrophe that we are seeing unfold from the inside out. We are forced to isolate — to be vigilant, to be quiet, to watch and contemplate the possible implosion of our civilisation in real time. When we eventually step clear of this moment we will have discovered things about our leaders, our societal systems, our friends, our enemies and most of all, ourselves. We will know something of our resilience, our capacity for forgiveness, and our mutual vulnerability. Perhaps, it is a time to pay attention, to be mindful, to be observant.
-Nick Cave
Tuesday, March 31, 2020
Nick Cave
All of the Unhappiness
All of the unhappiness and disappointment with my family has come roaring back. Communication is my thing but I am an introvert. Don't ask me to go to a party, a zoom meeting, or chat in a group email.
I love my solitude and I require it to stay sane. All of the family members who I left behind, I did for good reason in 1978. The crisis is NOT making this any better. In fact it's showing me how classism, bureaucracy, hierarchy, birth order and neurosis is what keeps me away during non pandemic times.
From afar I will say stay safe.
I love my solitude and I require it to stay sane. All of the family members who I left behind, I did for good reason in 1978. The crisis is NOT making this any better. In fact it's showing me how classism, bureaucracy, hierarchy, birth order and neurosis is what keeps me away during non pandemic times.
From afar I will say stay safe.
Baking the Blueberry Bundt Cake Again
It's really a gigantic muffin (recipe on this blog), whole wheat and not too sweet! I picked the berries last summer with my pal Celeste at the BIG APPLE in Wrentham. The berries have been waiting in my freezer for this moment. Be safe, enjoy your timeless time.
Leo Babauta
Be a curator of your life. Slowly cut things out until you're left only with what you love, with what's necessary, with what makes you happy.
- Leo Babauta
Reading
“Reading is important, because if you can read, you can learn anything about everything and everything about anything.”
― Tomie dePaola
Tomie dePaola
In 1998, dePaola told All Things Considered that he hoped to recognize children for all their capabilities. "As a grownup," he said, "I want to give children the credit for everything I can: their courage, their humor, their love, their creative abilities, their abilities to be fair, their abilities to be unfair. But I do wish that we grownups would give children lots of credit for these ephemeral kind of qualities that they have."
https://www.npr.org/2020/03/30/824244076/tomie-depaola-beloved-childrens-author-and-illustrator-has-died
Monday, March 30, 2020
Working at Home
I opened the fridge and 3 red bell peppers screamed SAVE ME! So I started chopping and the next thing I knew I had made a pot au feu with bell peppers, onions, kale corn garlic ginger almonds sesame seeds, sunflower seeds and soy sauce olive oil chianti, and a pot of brown rice.
When I came into my home-office I heard a distant fire alarm. I ran down and called the fire department and then ran out into the street and down the road so I could report which house.
When I came into my home-office I heard a distant fire alarm. I ran down and called the fire department and then ran out into the street and down the road so I could report which house.
Individual Pommes Anna
This stylish potato side dish is surprisingly easy to make.
French recipe
Ingredients
4 desiree potatoes, thinly sliced
50g butter, melted
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 teaspoon thyme leaves
Method
Step 1
Preheat oven to 220°C. Place the potato, butter, garlic and thyme in a large bowl. Season well with sea salt and coarsely ground black pepper. Stir gently until just combined.
Step 2
Arrange the potato slices evenly among four 3/4 cup (185ml) Texan muffin pans. Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes or until golden brown and tender.
Step 3
Remove from oven and turn out onto serving plates. Serve immediately.
Meaghan McCabe
Happy Monday everyone. The world is your oyster, in the sense that oysters are mostly closed.
-Meaghan McCabe
Sign of the Times
Sign in the window of the bar on my street. "Due to the Coronavirus and health Department we are CLOSED. We have no toilet paper, money or liquor on the premises."
Paradox
“Maybe we need a new category other than theism, atheism or agnosticism that takes paradox and unknowing into account.”
― Frank Schaeffer, Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God: How to give love, create beauty and find peace
Marcel Proust
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.
Marcel Proust
Choose
“You don't choose anything important. It just happens. The only choice you have is if you'll make life's accidents work.”
― Frank Schaeffer, Sex, Mom, and God
Cloistered
“The problem with the evangelical homeschool movement was not their desire to educate their children at home, or in private religious schools, but the evangelical impulse to "protect" children from ideas that might lead them to "question" and to keep them cloistered in what amounted to a series of one-family gated communities.”
― Frank Schaeffer, Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back
James Lee Jobe
Try to stay safe, y'all. Look for some joy inside your four walls. Keep a little piece of your heart for those thousands who will die today around the world, for those trying to save them, and for those who trying to keep the world going.
-James Lee Jobe
Iyanla Vanzant
What you are being challenged by may be the very thing you've been waiting for.
Iyanla Vanzant
Stephon Harris
https://www.npr.org/2020/03/30/822024071/stefon-harris-vibraphonist-educator-thinker-teaches-empathy-from-the-bandstand
"Empathy is essentially the science of understanding," Harris says. "And that's something that's necessary in local communities; it's necessary in elementary schools, on a collegiate level and in a corporate boardroom."
"Music was there to amplify the pain that we were going through as a family and as a community," Harris told the crowd at Clement's Place before the show started. "Someone would stand up, Sister Johnson or whoever it would be, and testify. And maybe she said, 'My brother was sick last week and I want to let you know he's feeling better.' And you know what I mean? That G minor would just come out of nowhere."
And as the organ chord swelled under her testimony, he learned that music was not purely for entertainment, it had a purpose.
"Stefon, to me, approaches every musical situation trying to contribute both to what's happening between the musicians on stage, but also to reflect back to the audience something profound," says Wayne Winborne, director of the Institute for Jazz Studies at Rutgers and a longtime friend of Harris. "The term he uses is empathy. I tend to talk about it as humanity."
Rabbi Jill Zimmerman's Fudge
https://chocolatechocolateandmore.com/3-minute-fudge/
Ingredients
1 can Sweetened Condensed milk (14 ounces)
2 cups (1 12 ounce bag) semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
Butter a square pan and line with parchment paper for easy removal of set fudge. Set aside.
In a microwave safe 2 quart bowl, heat chocolate chips and sweetened condensed milk, on high for 1 minute. Remove from microwave. Let sit for 1 minute, then stir to combine. If needed, heat an additional 30 seconds. Stir until chips are completely melted and chocolate is smooth.
Stir in vanilla extract. Pour fudge into prepared pan. Let fudge cool completely before cutting into 1 inch squares. (you can place in the refrigerator for 1 hour to speed up the process.)
Store in an airtight container. Fudge does not need to be kept refrigerated.
Sunday, March 29, 2020
Wholesome Blueberry Bundt Cake
Ingredients
1 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup corn oil
2 teaspoons real vanilla extract
2 eggs
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 cups whole-wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
2 cups frozen blueberries, or mixed berries (do not thaw)
Directions
Heat oven to 350 F. Spray a Bundt pan with cooking spray or grease with veg shortening or coconut oil. (Let cool for 15 minutes before tipping out of pan).
In a large bowl, mix the buttermilk, oil, vanilla, egg and brown sugar until smooth. Stir in flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt just until moistened. Gently fold the berries into the batter and spoon into the Bundt pan.
Bake for 55 minutes or until golden brown and top springs back when touched in center. Cool for 15 minutes then turn out of pan. Enjoy warm.
adapted and doubled from Mayo Clinic
Mixed berry whole-grain coffeecake
Sterling Hayden
“To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise, you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen who play with their boats at sea... "cruising" it is called. Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about.
"I've always wanted to sail to the south seas, but I can't afford it." What these men can't afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of "security." And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine - and before we know it our lives are gone.
What does a man need - really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in - and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That's all - in the material sense, and we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention for the sheer idiocy of the charade.
The years thunder by, The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed.
Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life? ”
― Sterling Hayden, Wanderer
Zoe Conway, Mairtín O'Connor & Dónal Lunny
Zoe Conway, Mairtín O'Connor & Dónal Lunny - FleadhTv 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXyxfSUhc-M
Thibaut
Multitasking is the sign of a stressed and diseased mind simultaneously doing many things poorly. Quality work and quality thinking require quiet focus.
Thibaut
Saturday, March 28, 2020
Therapeutic Misadventure
Therapeutic misadventure can be defined as an injury or an adverse event caused by medical management rather than by an underlying disease. Within the National Health Service there were over 86,000 reported adverse incidents in 2007. In the USA medication errors have been rated as the fourth highest cause of death.
Therapeutic misadventure. - NCBI
Protect your Family
Watch Dr. Dave Price at Cornell,
This is excellent!
Please share!!
Covid_19_Protecting_Your_Family_Dr_Dave_Price_3_22_2020
https://vimeo.com/399733860
This is excellent!
Please share!!
Covid_19_Protecting_Your_Family_Dr_Dave_Price_3_22_2020
https://vimeo.com/399733860
WE LOVE Paul Krugman
First, when you have a political movement almost entirely built around assertions than any expert can tell you are false, you have to cultivate an attitude of disdain toward expertise, one that spills over into everything. Once you dismiss people who look at evidence on the effects of tax cuts and the effects of greenhouse gas emissions, you’re already primed to dismiss people who look at evidence on disease transmission.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/opinion/coronavirus-trump-response.html
Upton Sinclair
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
Upton Sinclair
MollyJong-Fast
Sometimes at night when I lie in my bed haunted by the silence of the city streets I am convinced that I am a violinist on the Titanic, playing away to keep myself from being afraid.
https://www.vogue.com/article/why-i-am-not-leaving-new-york
Asiago Buttermilk Spinach Mac + Cheese
I've added olive oil Adobo my own breadcrumbs, kosher salt, buttermilk, grated Asiago, wholegrain rotini pasta. I'm baking it at 350 degrees.
It came out good. I forgot that the FROZEN spinach had a lot of water in it. But I let it sit after baking and it got absorbed.
We sprinkled it with ROMANO cheese.
Saint Alert: Chef José Andrés
'Without Empathy, Nothing Works.' Chef José Andrés Wants to Feed the World Through the Pandemic
https://time.com/collection/apart-not-alone/5809169/jose-andres-coronavirus-food/
I'm from NYC
I was born in Manhattan. I can't contain my loathing for DJT. I have never despised someone this much except of course my mother. Perhaps this is why I am so triggered with rage.
When I was a child my step-father came home from visiting my mother in the hospital. My mother had just had her gallbladder removed. He told us that she might die of pneumonia. I had to run and hide my face in the pantry between the cereal boxes, I was smiling so hard.
When I was a child my step-father came home from visiting my mother in the hospital. My mother had just had her gallbladder removed. He told us that she might die of pneumonia. I had to run and hide my face in the pantry between the cereal boxes, I was smiling so hard.
the joy of striving.
“A recipe has no soul. You, as the cook, must bring soul to the recipe.”
-- Thomas Keller
“This is the great challenge: to maintain passion for the everyday routine and the endlessly repeated act, to derive deep gratification from the mundane.”
-- Thomas Keller
“Its not about passion. Passion is something that we tend to overemphasize, that we certainly place too much importance on. Passion ebbs and flows. To me, it's about desire. If you have constant, unwavering desire to be a cook, then u'll be a great cook.”
-- Thomas Keller
“Let's face it: if you and I have the same capabilities, the same energy, the same staff, if the only thing that's different between you and me is the products we can get, and I can get a better product than you, I'm going to be a better chef.”
-- Thomas Keller
“A cookbook must have recipes, but it shouldn't be a blueprint. It should be more inspirational; it should be a guide.”
-- Thomas Keller
“For me, that's one of the important things about cooking. What was good enough yesterday may not be good enough today.”
-- Thomas Keller
“It's not about perfection; it's about the joy of striving.”
-- Thomas Keller
“And don't forget music - music in the kitchen is an essential ingredient!”
-- Thomas Keller
“But once in a while you might see me at In and Out Burger; they make the best fast food hamburgers around.”
-- Thomas Keller
“Hopefully, imparting what's important to me, respect for the food and that information about the purveyors, people will realize that for a restaurant to be good, so many pieces have to come together.”
-- Thomas Keller
“You're getting to know who the great chefs are through their books.”
-- Thomas Keller
“I wanted to learn everything I could about what it takes to be a great chef. It was a turning point for me.”
-- Thomas Keller
“We rely on our purveyors to tell us what's available and what's good.”
-- Thomas Keller
“We go through our careers and things happen to us. Those experiences made me what I am.”
-- Thomas Keller
“I wonder if I love the communal act of eating so much because throughout my childhood, with four older brothers and a mom who worked in the restaurant business, I spent a lot of time fending for myself, eating alone - and recognizing how eating together made all the difference.”
-- Thomas Keller
“Even the most astute chefs seek out the assistance of Celine Labaune, owner of Gourmet Attitude, because they know they can rely on her keen senses and deep understanding of the truffle trade.”
-- Thomas Keller
“I came to understand that the words executive and corporate never belong next to the word chef.”
-- Thomas Keller
“In any restaurant of this caliber, the chefs are in the same position, building relationships.”
-- Thomas Keller
“Whether it's destiny or fate or whatever, I don't think I could do a French Laundry anywhere else.”
-- Thomas Keller
“I guess the main source of stress for me is the stress I put on myself.”
-- Thomas Keller
“You have to be driven. You have to be focused. You have to be aware.”
-- Thomas Keller
“One of the problems with writing a cookbook is that recipes exist in the moment.”
-- Thomas Keller
“Some of the recipes in the book have evolved for us. Many haven't.”
-- Thomas Keller
“Once you understand the foundations of cooking - whatever kind you like, whether it's French or Italian or Japanese - you really don't need a cookbook anymore.”
-- Thomas Keller
“The media builds you up, and then it tears you down.”
-- Thomas Keller
“I wanted to write about what we were doing at the French Laundry, the recipes and the stories.”
-- Thomas Keller
“When I go out to eat, it's usually something moderate in style.”
-- Thomas Keller
“It wasn't about mechanics; it was about a feeling, wanting to give someone something, which in turn was really gratifying. That really resonated for me.”
-- Thomas Keller
Thomas Keller, Chef
“I think that you’ve got to make something that pleases you and hope that other people feel the same way.”
― Thomas Keller
“Cooking is not about convenience and it's not about shortcuts. Our hunger for the twenty-minute gourmet meal, for one-pot ease and prewashed, precut ingredients has severed our lifeline to the satisfactions of cooking. Take your time. Take a long time. Move slowly and deliberately and with great attention.”
― Thomas Keller, The French Laundry Cookbook
“When we eat together, when we set out to do so deliberately, life is better, no matter what your circumstances.”
― Thomas Keller, Ad Hoc at Home
“When you acknowledge, as you must, that there is no such thing as perfect food, only the idea of it, then the real purpose of striving toward perfection becomes clear: to make people happy, that is what cooking is all about.”
― Thomas Keller, The French Laundry Cookbook
2PM Dinner
"Back in the day we called lunch dinner. Everyone came home from work and school to eat together."
Today we had multigrain rotini 3 minutes in the instant pot, with onion, and fresh garlic, fresh green veggies (kale+broccoli), cranberries and Chianti, olive oil, soy sauce, Romano cheese on top. Yum!
Today we had multigrain rotini 3 minutes in the instant pot, with onion, and fresh garlic, fresh green veggies (kale+broccoli), cranberries and Chianti, olive oil, soy sauce, Romano cheese on top. Yum!
You can help!
You can help identify the spread of the Covid 19 virus. There is a web site designed by the Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School to track an epidemic's spread and course.
https://covidnearyou.org/#!/
It is now being used to track the Corona virus. You can help, just go to the website daily and tell them if you have symptoms and what they are. Takes about 38.7 seconds. They ask a couple of questions designed to help understand the demographics such as month and year of birth, gender if you are willing, zip code. Then just check in daily and answer the question: "Are you sick?"
They also have maps to identify the zip code, nothing more, of people who are sick and of people who have been tested.
Please participate and also, please urge your friends to do so.
Make a Backdrop
I have a thing about filming/ photographing in my house. I'm an introvert. I am private. I am from a judgemental family. Years ago I saw a photograph of my hero Pavarotti in his backyard in Italy. My first thought was "he has white plastic resin chairs?" Well that's exactly what I fear someone would do to me.
The solution? Make a backdrop.
The solution? Make a backdrop.
Breathe in Breathe Out
Build pockets of stillness into your life. Meditate. Go for walks. Ride your bike going nowhere in particular. There is a creative purpose to daydreaming, even to boredom. The best ideas come to us when we stop actively trying to coax the muse into manifesting and let the fragments of experience float around our unconscious mind in order to click into new combinations. Without this essential stage of unconscious processing, the entire flow of the creative process is broken.
MARIA POPOVA
https://advicetowriters.com/advice/2016/10/30/build-pockets-of-stillness-into-your-life.html
The Gambler
Kenny Rogers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hx4gdlfamo
[Verse 1]
On a warm summer's evenin' on a train bound for nowhere
I met up with a gambler, we were both too tired to sleep
So we took turns a-starin' out the window at the darkness
'Til boredom overtook us and he began to speak
[Verse 2]
He said, "Son, I've made a life out of readin' people's faces
And knowin' what their cards were
By the way they held their eyes
So if you don't mind my sayin', I can see you're out of aces
For a taste of your whiskey I'll give you some advice"
[Verse 3]
So I handed him my bottle and he drank down my last swallow
Then he bummed a cigarette and asked me for a light
And the night got deathly quiet and his face lost all expression
Said, "If you're gonna play the game, boy
You gotta learn to play it right"
[Chorus]
You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away and know when to run
You never count your money when you're sittin' at the table
There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealing's done
[Verse 4]
Every gambler knows that the secret to survivin'
Is knowin' what to throw away and knowing what to keep
'Cause every hand's a winner and every hand's a loser
And the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep
[Verse 5]
And when he finished speakin'
He turned back towards the window
Crushed out his cigarette and faded off to sleep
And somewhere in the darkness the gambler, he broke even
But in his final words I found an ace that I could keep
[Chorus]
You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away and know when to run
You never count your money when you're sittin' at the table
There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealing's done
[Outro]
You got to know when to hold 'em (When to hold 'em)
Know when to fold 'em (When to fold 'em)
Know when to walk away and know when to run
You never count your money when you're sittin' at the table
There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealing's done
You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away and know when to run
You never count your money when you're sittin' at the table
There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealing's done
Lao Tzu
If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.
Lao Tzu
Fascist!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The 14 Defining Characteristics Of Fascism - Trump Is a Fascist
The 14 Defining Characteristics Of Fascism.
Kiss the RING
I feel like the whole nation is getting a crash course in MALIGNANT NARCISSISM + SOCIOPATHOLOGY.
Hand of Bananas
This cluster of bananas is called a hand and would consist of 10 to 20 bananas. Each single banana is called a finger. Typically in a store/market you find under 10 bananas in a hand.
My husband who knows everything, had never heard the term hand of bananas.
society as a whole
“Father argued that society as a whole must come to be organized on a different basis than greed, for while material interests gained somewhat by the institutionalized deification of pure selfishness, ordinary men and women lost everything by it.”
― Russell Banks, Cloudsplitter
Not Obey
“You must not obey a majority, no matter how large, if it opposes your principles and opinions.' He said this to each new volunteer and repeated it over and over to him, until it was engraved on his mind. 'The largest majority is often only an organized mob whose noise can no more change the false into the true than it can change black into white or night into day. And a minority, conscious of its rights, if those rights are based on moral principles, will sooner or later become a just majority.”
― Russell Banks, Cloudsplitter
Deluded Fools
“Poor, deluded fools. Because their skin's as white as the rich man's, they believe that they might someday be rich themselves. But without the Negro, Owen, these men would be forced to see that, in fact, they have no more chance of becoming rich than do the very slaves they despise and trample on. They'd see how close they are to being slaves themselves. Thus, to protect and nurture their dream of becoming someday, somehow, rich, they don't need actually to own slaves, so much as they need to keep the Negro from ever being free.”
― Russell Banks, Cloudsplitter
love a town
“I’ve got nothing against outsiders, per se, you understand. It’s just that you have to love a town before you can live in it right, and you have to live in it before you can love it right. Otherwise, you’re a parasite of sorts.”
― Russell Banks, The Sweet Hereafter
Cloudsplitter
“Of all the animals on this planet, we are surely the nastiest, the most deceitful, the most murderous and vile. Despite our God, or because of him. Both.”
― Russell Banks, Cloudsplitter
Tragedy+Mourning
“It's a way of living with tragedy, I guess, to claim after it happens that you saw it coming, as if somehow you had already made the necessary adjustments beforehand.”
― Russell Banks, The Sweet Hereafter
“Mourning can be very selfish. When someone you love has died, you tend to recall best those few moments and incidents that helped clarify your sense, not of the person who has died, but of your own self.”
― Russell Banks, The Sweet Hereafter
A Condition
“I was afraid of the consequences of my acts in the right way, beyond guilt, but it was too late. I'd already become the person I should have been afraid of becoming.”
― Russell Banks, Success Stories
“It's like a crime is an act that when you've committed one the act is over and you haven't changed inside. But when you commit a sin it's like you create a condition that you have to live in.”
― Russell Banks, Rule of the Bone
Mirror
“It was strange to stand there in front of the mirror and see myself like I was my own best friend, a kid wanted to hang with forever. This was a boy I could travel to the seacoasts with, a boy I'd like to meet up with in foreign cities like Calcutta and London and Brazil, a boy I could trust who also had a good sense of humor and liked smoked oysters from a can and good weed and the occasional 40 ounces of malt. If I was going to be alone for the rest of my life this was the person I wanted to be alone with.”
― Russell Banks, Rule of the Bone
No Good Reason
“One of the most difficult things to say to another person is, I hope that you will love me for no good reason. But it is what we all want and rarely dare to say to one another – to our children, to our parents and mates, to our friends, and to strangers. Especially to strangers, who have neither good nor bad reasons to love us. And it’s why we tell each other stories that we pray will be transformed in the telling by that angel on the roof, made believable and about us all, no matter who we are to one another and who we are not.”
― Russell Banks, The Angel on the Roof
The Truth
“Let the truth take care of itself, I decided. It's done all right on its own so far.”
― Russell Banks, The Book of Jamaica
Secrets and Lies
“Secrets and lies, they eat your insides until all you have left is a hard thin skin that covers you like the shell of one of those eggs you poke a little hole in and draw out its eggy contents before you dye it for Easter.”
― Russell Banks, Lost Memory of Skin
Alone
“They were totally alone, those kids, like each had been accidentally sent to earth from a distant planet to live among adult humans and be dependent on them for everything because compared to the adult humans they were extremely fragile creatures and didn't know the language or how anything here worked and hadn't arrived with any money. And because they were like forbidden by the humans to use their old language they'd forgotten it so they couldn't be much company or help to each other either. They couldn't even talk about the old days and so pretty soon they forgot there ever were any old days and all there was now was life on earth with adult humans who called them children and acted toward them like they owned them and like they were objects not living creatures with souls.”
― Russell Banks, Rule of the Bone
Boys
“Boys like it when you talk to them as if they were grown men—at least he always did when he was a kid—because they pretend that’s what they are anyhow, grown-up men, and they do it for their entire lives.”
― Russell Banks, Lost Memory of Skin
They were gone
“They were gone and I missed them but even so I was very happy. For the rest of my life no matter where on this planet earth I went and no matter how scared or confused I got, I could wait until dark and look up into the night sky and see my three friends again and my heart would swell with love of them and make me strong and clearheaded.”
― Russell Banks
when you’re a kid
“But when you’re a kid it’s like you’re wearing these binoculars strapped to your eyes and you can’t see anything except what’s in the dead center of the lenses”
― Russell Banks, Rule of the Bone
Heroism
“We are the planet, fully as much as water, earth, fire and air are the planet, and if the planet survives, it will only be through heroism. Not occasional heroism, a remarkable instance of it here and there, but constant heroism, systematic heroism, heroism as governing principle.”
― Russell Banks, Continental Drift
Child of Advertising
“All those happy, pretty, successful people- he hated them because he knew they didn't really exist, and he hated even more the magazine that glorified them and in a way that made them exist, actors, rock musicians, famous writers, politicians. Those aren't people, he fumed, they're photographs.”
― Russell Banks, Continental Drift
Lost Memory of Skin
“What you believe matters, however. It’s all anyone has to act on. And since what you do is who you are, your actions define you. If you don’t believe anything is true simply because you can’t logically prove what’s true, you won’t do anything. You won’t be anything. You’ll end up spending your life in a rocking chair looking out at the horizon waiting for an answer that never comes. You might as well be dead. It’s an old philosophical problem.”
― Russell Banks, Lost Memory of Skin
Long Way
“When you are a long way from where you think you belong, you will attach yourself to people you would otherwise ignore or even dislike.”
― Russell Banks, Trailerpark
Banks
“If you dedicate your attention to discipline in your life you become smarter while you are writing than while you are hanging out with your pals or in any other line of work.”
― Russell Banks
use the accident
A really good picture looks as if it's happened at once. It's an immediate image.
Helen Frankenthaler
I wanted things that I couldn't at times articulate.
Helen Frankenthaler
One really beautiful wrist motion, that is synchronised with your head and heart, and you have it. It looks as if it were born in a minute.
Helen Frankenthaler
The landscapes were in my arms as I did it.
Helen Frankenthaler
The question of sex will take care of itself.
Helen Frankenthaler
There are no rules. That is how art is born, how breakthroughs happen. Go against the rules or ignore the rules. That is what invention is about.
Helen Frankenthaler
We would sift through every inch of what it was that worked, or if it didn't, and wonder what was effective in it, in terms of paint, the subject matter, the size, the drawing.
Helen Frankenthaler
Whatever the medium, there is the difficulty, challenge, fascination and often productive clumsiness of learning a new method: the wonderful puzzles and problems of translating with new materials.
Helen Frankenthaler
You have to know how to use the accident, how to recognise it, how to control it, and ways to eliminate it so that the whole surface looks felt and born all at once.
Helen Frankenthaler
we’re not born civilized
Eating food that strangers cook is vastly different than eating what’s cooked at home. The real key is sharing food at that table and, believe me, we know we’re not born civilized. We’re small savages, so you have to be taught the table is the place where you learn who you are and where you’re from, understanding that a lot of people just do nothing but fight at the table. Nonetheless, you come to know one another. The result is you know who you are.
-From the 1996 PBS show, Baking With Julia
The Fannie Farmer Cookbook
Too many families seldom sit down together; it’s gobble and go, eating food on the run, reheating it in relays in the microwave as one dashes off to a committee meeting, another to basketball practice. As a result we are losing an important value. Food is more than fodder. It is an act of giving and receiving because the experience at table is a communal sharing; talk begins to flow, feelings are expressed, and a sense of well-being takes over.
- Marion Cunningham, From the preface to The Fannie Farmer Cookbook
Marion Cunningham, Lost Recipes
Home cooking is a catalyst that brings people together. We are losing the daily ritual of sitting down around the table (without the intrusion of television), of having the opportunity to interact, to share our experiences and concerns, to listen to others. Home kitchens, despite the increase in designer appliances and cabinetry, are mostly quiet and empty today. Strangers are preparing much of our food. And our supermarkets, which once considered restaurants and fast-food places the enemy, have joined the trend by enlarging their delis and offering ready-to-eat food they call “home-replacement meals.” But bringing ready-cooked meals home is not the same as cooking in your own kitchen, where you are in control of the ingredients you use, where you fill the house with good cooking smells, and where you all share in a single dish, taking a helping and passing the platter on to your neighbor. Nothing can replace that.
-Marion Cunningham, Lost Recipes
Laundry
I get tremendous comfort in washing my clothes and my dishes for that matter. I am by no means a clean freak. There are places in my house that have never seen clean and my house was built in 1888.
Haiku for Ouhan
Haiku for Ouhan
I always knew that--
and knew it before he did --
He has a good heart.
Phoebe Martone
Dream
I dreamed I had a tiny spiral notebook 2"x3" to keep a record of my headaches. I woke up with an anvil headache but luckily it was morning.
Friday, March 27, 2020
Off with his Head
We need a guillotine for the guy in charge or ten thousand Voo-Doo Dolls to take him down.
Typhoid Mary 1900, in Mamaroneck, New York
On this date in 1915, the woman known as "Typhoid Mary" was put into quarantine in a cottage in the Bronx. Her name was Mary Mallon, and she was a large and fiery Irish-American woman about 40 years old. She worked as a cook in and around New York City, and every household she worked in seemed to suffer an outbreak of typhoid fever. Typhoid is caused by a form of Salmonella bacteria, and is usually spread by contact with human or animal waste. It was common on battlefields — it may have killed more than 200,000 soldiers during the Civil War — and in poor and unsanitary housing conditions, but it was rarely seen in the wealthy households like the ones where Mallon worked.
The first outbreak associated with Typhoid Mary occurred in 1900, in Mamaroneck, New York. She had been cooking for a family for about two weeks when they started to become ill. The same thing happened the following year, when she took a series of jobs in Manhattan and Long Island. She helped take care of the sick, not realizing that her presence was probably making them worse.
In 1906, a doctor named George Soper noticed this strange pattern of outbreaks in wealthy homes. He went to interview each of the families, and found that they had all hired the same cook, but she never left a forwarding address when she moved on to other employment. He finally tracked her down after several cases in a Park Avenue penthouse, so he interviewed her. She didn't take it well, and swore at him, and threatened him with a meat cleaver when he asked her to provide a stool sample. He finally called in the police and had her arrested.
Urine and stool samples were taken from Mallon by force, and doctors discovered that her gall bladder was shedding great numbers of typhoid bacteria. She admitted that she never washed her hands when cooking, but she didn't see the point, as she was healthy. No one had ever heard of a healthy carrier of typhoid before, and she refused to believe that she was in any way sick. They wanted to take out her gall bladder, and she refused. They demanded that she give up cooking, and she refused to do that too. They confined her for a while and put her to work as a laundress for the Riverside Hospital, and in 1910 — after she promised to give up cooking and only work as a laundress — she was released. It wasn't long before she changed her name to Mary Brown and took a job as a cook. For the next five years, she stayed one step ahead of the doctors and the law, spreading disease and death in her wake, until they caught up with her on Long Island. Authorities placed her in quarantine on North Brother Island in the Bronx for the rest of her life, and she died of pneumonia in 1938.
Garrison Keillor
After a week in Corona Prison with my loved ones, I must say — if I were to croak tomorrow, I’d look back on the week as a beautiful blessing. Feeling closer than ever to friends, the complete loss of a sense of time, the intense gratitude for the wife and daughter. We should make it an annual event. A week of isolation. Call it Thanksgiving. The one in November we can rename Day of Obligation.
The news from Washington is astonishing, each day worse than the day before. The con man at the lectern, the trillion-dollar re-election bailout. Satire is helpless in the face of it. Nothing to be done until November.
-Garrison Keillor
if you do it right
“But kids don't stay with you if you do it right. It's the one job where, the better you are, the more surely you won't be needed in the long run.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, Pigs in Heaven
Nurturing Routines
“When we traded homemaking for careers, we were implicitly promised economic independence and worldly influence. But a devil of a bargain it has turned out to be in terms of daily life. We gave up the aroma of warm bread rising, the measured pace of nurturing routines, the creative task of molding our families' tastes and zest for life; we received in exchange the minivan and the Lunchable.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
I kept moving
“As long as I kept moving, my grief streamed out behind me like a swimmer's long hair in water. I knew the weight was there but it didn't touch me. Only when I stopped did the slick, dark stuff of it come floating around my face, catching my arms and throat till I began to drown. So I just didn't stop.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible
Balance
“The power is in the balance: we are our injuries, as much as we are our successes.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible
A Book
“I attempted briefly to consecrate myself in the public library, believing every crack in my soul could be chinked with a book.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible
Close the Door
“Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer.”
― Barbara Kingsolver
Elementary
“What I want is so simple I almost can't say it: elementary kindness.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams
Marked
“Listen. To live is to be marked. To live is to change, to acquire the words of a story, and that is the only celebration we mortals really know. In perfect stillness, frankly, I've only found sorrow.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible
A Rock
“She kept swimming out into life because she hadn't yet found a rock to stand on.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams
Barbara Kingsolver
“The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams
Loretta LaRoche
Loretta LaRoche - How to Humor Your Stress , TEDxNewBedford
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HXPS9BRL8o
Thursday, March 26, 2020
Socializing + Scavaging in the Sunshine
We drove to the church and had a big walk to the pond.
Andrew, a guy I hadn't seen in 5 years, came over to ROMEO and pet and snuggled him. It was more than a pat, it was a massage! When we got home we washed ROMEO in the bathtub, just to be safe. His collar is swishing in the washing machine.
We found three frosted glass lampshades and ceramic fixtures and wires in my pal Sandy's dumpster. Her kitchen is getting a do-over. We took them home washed them and used one shade on our front porch light.
Andrew, a guy I hadn't seen in 5 years, came over to ROMEO and pet and snuggled him. It was more than a pat, it was a massage! When we got home we washed ROMEO in the bathtub, just to be safe. His collar is swishing in the washing machine.
We found three frosted glass lampshades and ceramic fixtures and wires in my pal Sandy's dumpster. Her kitchen is getting a do-over. We took them home washed them and used one shade on our front porch light.
fight or flatter, the MONSTER
https://apnews.com/f9fb8c41b7f8acc215e3ec78ca32210a
Flatter or fight? Governors seeking help must navigate Trump
Jim Jones, Mr. Koolaid
Mr Koolaid is running this country.
cult leader who conspired with his inner circle to direct a mass murder-suicide of his followers in his jungle commune at Jonestown, Guyana.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jones
cult leader who conspired with his inner circle to direct a mass murder-suicide of his followers in his jungle commune at Jonestown, Guyana.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jones
Look for the Silver Lining
"Look for the Silver Lining"- Till The Clouds Roll By
Lyrics
As I wash my dishes, I'll be following a plan
Till I see the brightness in every pot and pan
I am sure this point of view will ease the daily grind
So I'll keep repeating in my mind
Look for the silver lining
Whenever a cloud appears in the blue
Remember somewhere the sun is shining
And so the right thing to do is make it shine for you
A heart full of joy and gladness
Will always banish sadness and strife
So always look for the silver lining
And try to find the sunny side of life
So always look for the silver lining
And try to find the sunny side of life
Songwriters: Bud De Sylva / Jerome Kern
Your Path
“If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it's not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That's why it's your path.”
― Joseph Campbell
Seeking
“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”
― Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth
Meaning
“Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer.”
― Joseph Campbell
Baking 4 Sourdough Loaves
The perfume is amazing. I am also cooking a pot of brown rice with no salt because my spinach dish was too salty. This will balance out.
Tips for Sudden Self-Employment
I've been self employed for decades. I tell the newly unemployed to get up at the same time each morning and go to bed at the same time each night if possible. Put your rituals in place. Habit is the muse! Habit is what props you up on difficult days.
When I first started working at home I was very mean to myself. So naturally I WAS MISERABLE. It took many years and a lot of reading and soul searching to learn to trust myself and find my true passion and what works.
I get up let the dog out feed Romeo+Sammy, brush my teeth, make coffee, read the news. I take a shower and PUT ON CLEAN CLOTHES, yes --this is important! I walk my dog on the downtown mile loop. It puts me in touch with the greater good, my city. I call it "my commute".
When I return home I know it's time to get to work. Some mornings I am also doing household chores. Today I am proofing dough. Yesterday I washed my clothes. Last night I made brown rice in my instant pot while I was working.
It has taken me a long time to trust that doing quick chores won't derail my commitment to work. The breaks in between focused work sessions are also good for the brain and a source of intuition. Keep your antenna up!
When the day comes to a close I make dinner and then my husband and I have another walk with the dog. Breaking up time indoors with time outdoors is a natural for me because I have a dog. My dog has introduced my to my community. For the work at home folks I recommend adopting a dog for your companionship exercise and comfort.
When I first started working at home I was very mean to myself. So naturally I WAS MISERABLE. It took many years and a lot of reading and soul searching to learn to trust myself and find my true passion and what works.
I get up let the dog out feed Romeo+Sammy, brush my teeth, make coffee, read the news. I take a shower and PUT ON CLEAN CLOTHES, yes --this is important! I walk my dog on the downtown mile loop. It puts me in touch with the greater good, my city. I call it "my commute".
When I return home I know it's time to get to work. Some mornings I am also doing household chores. Today I am proofing dough. Yesterday I washed my clothes. Last night I made brown rice in my instant pot while I was working.
It has taken me a long time to trust that doing quick chores won't derail my commitment to work. The breaks in between focused work sessions are also good for the brain and a source of intuition. Keep your antenna up!
When the day comes to a close I make dinner and then my husband and I have another walk with the dog. Breaking up time indoors with time outdoors is a natural for me because I have a dog. My dog has introduced my to my community. For the work at home folks I recommend adopting a dog for your companionship exercise and comfort.
I LOVE Loretta LaRoche
Plymouth’s Loretta LaRoche on coronastress
https://plymouth.wickedlocal.com/news/20200325/plymouths-loretta-laroche-on-coronastress
Wednesday, March 25, 2020
Delicious
Last night I made a fabulous dinner: fresh garlic, olive oil, 2 lbs frozen spinach, small bag of defrosted ham chopped and simmered in fresh chix stock Adobo and 2 chix bullion cubes added and a 1 pound bag of frozen corn. The chix stock was leftover from the chix wings. Today I made brown rice to go with it. It was excellent!
Mix Up Dough
Hands in the bowl with flour salt water + yeast. Mud pie!
I added sourdough starter too. (Irish oats, semolina, bread flour, cornmeal, rye flour)+Kosher salt.
The dough rose up and I punched it down.
It rose up again!
I punched it down and put it in the fridge.
Tomorrow morning I will bake it.
I added sourdough starter too. (Irish oats, semolina, bread flour, cornmeal, rye flour)+Kosher salt.
The dough rose up and I punched it down.
It rose up again!
I punched it down and put it in the fridge.
Tomorrow morning I will bake it.
Heals Them
“Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them.”
― Leo Tolstoy
stop a moment
“If, then, I were asked for the most important advice I could give, that which I considered to be the most useful to the men of our century, I should simply say: in the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Essays, Letters and Miscellanies
Tolstoy
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
― Leo Tolstoy
Give up Defining
“Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.”
― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Give up defining yourself - to yourself or to others. You won't die. You will come to life. And don't be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it's their problem. Whenever you interact with people, don't be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious Presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.”
― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
Masks and Bullhorns and double sided Tape
Must-haves during pandemic
masks
bullhorn
double-sided skin tape
gloves
soap
masks
bullhorn
double-sided skin tape
gloves
soap
Who Drinks The KOOL-AID?
I am so angry right now that if I say what I wish the secret service would come take me away. All I can say is stay home and get smart. VOTE him out!! Trump is too much like Jim Jones, and too much like the folks who raised me. Narcissism is a terrible disease and it's INCURABLE!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jones
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jones
rethink our social hierarchy
Ida Bae Wells
@nhannahjones
It seems to me that this crisis has forced us to rethink our social hierarchy in radical ways. The people treated as invisible, as doing unimportant work, are now the most essential workers in America. Our life lines are the grocery clerks, food delivery drivers, mail carriers.
Flannery O'Connor
"You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd."
"Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to never was there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it."
Nick Cave
Issue #89 / March 2020
What do we do now?
JOHN, LONDON, UK
The Red Hand Files has always been a space in which I could offer dubious existential notions, religious meditations, unsound advice, millennial senilities and general annoyances, while hopefully simultaneously extending a little human kindness and compassion. However, these sorts of ruminations came from a more privileged and fortunate time, when we had the oxygen to muse and to play. Things have changed, we are faced with a common enemy — impartial, unfeeling and of immeasurable magnitude — and it is no longer a time for abstractions. Now is the time to be cautious with our words, our opinions.
A friend called our new world ‘a ghost ship’ — and maybe she is right. She has recently lost someone dear to her and recognises acutely the premonitory feeling of a world about to be shattered — and that we will need to put ourselves back together again, not only personally, but societally. In time we will be given the opportunity to either contract around the old version of ourselves and our world — insular, self-interested and tribalistic — or understand the connectedness and commonality of all humans, everywhere. In isolation, we will be presented with our essence — of what we are personally and what we are as a society. We will be asked to decide what we want to preserve about our world and ourselves, and what we want to discard.
Eventually these questions will become of acute significance, but they are not for now. Now is a time to listen to those in more informed positions and to follow instructions, as difficult as that may be, as we step into the unprecedented unknowable. We should be careful about the noises we make — especially those with a public voice — and should not pretend to know what we do not. From within the clamour and tonnage of information and misinformation, of opinions and counter-opinions, of blame-games and grim prophecy and the most panic-inducing version of ‘Imagine’ ever recorded, emerges a simple message — wash your hands and (if you can) stay at home.
Love, Nick
Tuesday, March 24, 2020
Cheddar Jalepeno
https://www.biggerbolderbaking.com/savory-donuts-cheddar-jalapeno/
Cheddar Jalapeño Savory Donuts Recipe
Italo Calvino
'You take delight not in a city's seven or seventy wonders, but in the answer it gives to a question of yours.'
'Or the question it asks you, forcing you to answer, like Thebes through the mouth of the Sphinx.'
— Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities
Flatten the Curve!
March 23, 2020 4:53PM ET
With Clubs Closed for COVID-19, Strippers in Portland, Oregon, Take to Topless Food Delivery
Never Say
Never say you're going to do something ahead of doing it. Hold your breath. Wait. Later you can and announce what you have already done! Because each time you say something ahead of time you lose the juice, the energy. Then the demons get in and destroy your plan.
Bailey White Quotes
“I'm tired of being set upon by crazed Christians one minute and unbridled libertines the next. Girls, I'm going camping.”
― Bailey White, Mama Makes Up Her Mind: And Other Dangers of Southern Living
“When Mama starts to move across a room, people pay attention. You can never be sure she's not going to grab you by the top of the head to steady herself. And she's pretty free with that walking stick, too.”
― Bailey White, Mama Makes Up Her Mind and Other Dangers of Southern Living
“It was no mean trick doing the wiring with those mittens on. But I managed it and crawled out, batting spiders into the shadows. I could hear a thud as they hit the floor joists, then a scuttling sound, then, worst of all, the silence of spiders.”
― Bailey White, Mama Makes Up Her Mind and Other Dangers of Southern Living
“We settled Mama into the wheelchair and loaded her down with both our pocketbooks and a vase of flowers I had picked to present to our host in hopes of softening the effects of any opinions Mama might vent during the evening.”
― Bailey White, Mama Makes Up Her Mind and Other Dangers of Southern Living
“Her blood-curdling snoring, with its gargling and squawking and its terrifying pauses is like the sound the devil might make if he were alternately relishing and strangling on a pound of human flesh.”
― Bailey White, Mama Makes Up Her Mind and Other Dangers of Southern Living
“When I got started again, I drove slower and felt smaller. I think it does us all good to get looked at like that now and then by a wild animal.”
― Bailey White, Mama Makes Up Her Mind and Other Dangers of Southern Living
“Then she laughed out loud and hugged him tight with both arms. She smelled like pine trees and lichens and hot sand. How odd, thought Roger, that after all, this is what it took - not a flock of scarlet ibises or golden-crowned kinglets, but just the names of chicken, hovering in the air like the sulpher butterflies at the dump.”
― Bailey White, Quite a Year for Plums
“I have the sick fantasy that whatever I see at the movies is going to happen to me at home. My bladder capacity increased tenfold after I saw "The Shining" because I was sure that if I went into the bathroom late at night, there would be a dead woman in the bathtub.”
― Bailey White, Mama Makes Up Her Mind and Other Dangers of Southern Living
“Everybody's a little crazy if you get to know them good enough.”
― Bailey White, Quite a Year for Plums
“It’s a terrible painting,” said Della, backing away from it with distaste.
“There’s definitely something wrong with the mayonnaise,” said Lucy. “It looks almost curdled, as if she added the oil too quickly.”
“I don’t know anything about mayonnaise,” said Della. “It’s just a terrible painting. I don’t blame Dr. Vanlandingham.”
“But I like the idea of it, said Roger. “A portrait of a sandwich.”
― Bailey White, Quite a Year for Plums
Scream
Time to make voodoo dolls.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/03/donald-trump-defense-production-act
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/03/donald-trump-defense-production-act
Devil at the Helm
Democracy Dies in Darkness
Opinions
This president has no empathy
By
Dana Milbank
Columnist
March 23, 2020 at 8:53 PM EDT
sucked into a bad sci-fi movie
We're sucked into a bad sci-fi movie where people are touting miracle cures to get rich. The evil orange monster is killing everyone off. Flames shooting out of manhole covers and the world is blowing up.
Desire is a teacher
“Desire is a teacher: When we immerse ourselves in it without guilt, shame or clinging, it can show us something special about our own minds that allows us to embrace life fully.”
― Mark Epstein, Open to Desire
“When you know someone’s dream you look at that person differently—with more tenderness, respect, familiarity, sympathy, and generosity than before. Look at everyone you meet this week and actively think to yourself, “I wonder what their dreams are?”
― Danielle LaPorte, The Fire Starter Sessions
“As the legend goes, when the Phoenix resurrects from the flames, she is even more beautiful than before.”
― Danielle LaPorte
Awareness
“Awareness is realizing that our life could always be better. Growth is doing what it takes to make it better. When we choose the positive over the negative, liberation over repression, truth over illusion, we become real creators.”
― Danielle LaPorte, The Desire Map
Synced
“If your goals aren’t synced with the substance of your heart, then achieving them won’t matter much.”
― Danielle LaPorte, The Fire Starter Sessions
You don't have to be fearless. Just be sincere.
“Can you remember who you were, before the world told you who you should be?”
― Danielle LaPorte
“You will always be too much of something for someone: too big, too loud, too soft, too edgy. If you round out your edges, you lose your edge.”
― Danielle LaPorte
“Consider that you radiate. At all times. Consider that what you’re feeling right now is rippling outward into a field of is-ness that anyone can dip their oar into. You are felt. You are heard. You are seen. If you were not here, the world would be different. Because of your presence, the universe is expanding.”
― Danielle LaPorte
“Care more about being accurately and precisely who you are, than caring what someone might think about you.
Be daring enough to tell us--your customers, your fans, your people--about your deep desires and ambitions, because we?ll be the ones to help you fulfill them.
You don't have to be fearless. Just be sincere.”
― Danielle Laporte
Emily's Buttermilk Pancakes
PANDEMIC PANCAKES
1 c whole wheat flour
1 T brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teasp baking soda
1 teasp kosher salt
1 1/2 cup lowfat buttermilk
1 T veg oil
2 eggs
1/2 c pumpkin puree
lemon zest! (I keep fresh lemon rinds in my freezer for quick grating in recipes)
optional:
(blueberries, pumpkin, sliced apples, or banana slices)
1 c whole wheat flour
1 T brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teasp baking soda
1 teasp kosher salt
1 1/2 cup lowfat buttermilk
1 T veg oil
2 eggs
1/2 c pumpkin puree
lemon zest! (I keep fresh lemon rinds in my freezer for quick grating in recipes)
optional:
(blueberries, pumpkin, sliced apples, or banana slices)
Cherish
Cherish the sound of the dogs nails on the linoleum. The piping hot coffee, the piano music on the radio.
Yesterday Bill and I walked downtown. THE CASTLE, closed, and the picnic tables were vertical so that nobody would sleep on them.
I've been social distancing since the day I was born. I'm a devoted introvert. My dog is the bridge to humans. I'd rather have a pen pal than be in the same room with humans.
Yesterday Bill and I walked downtown. THE CASTLE, closed, and the picnic tables were vertical so that nobody would sleep on them.
I've been social distancing since the day I was born. I'm a devoted introvert. My dog is the bridge to humans. I'd rather have a pen pal than be in the same room with humans.
Pandemic
pandemic noun
pan·dem·ic | \ pan-ˈde-mik
\
Definition of pandemic (Entry 2 of 2)
: an outbreak of a disease that occurs over a wide geographic area and affects an exceptionally high proportion of the population : a pandemic outbreak of a disease
Examples of pandemic in a Sentence
Noun … globalization, the most thoroughgoing socioeconomic upheaval since the Industrial Revolution, which has set off a pandemic of retrogressive nationalism, regional separatism, and religious extremism. — Martin Filler, New York Review of Books, 24 Sept. 2009 … it also hopes to utilize this cultural investigation to better understand strategies to reduce the massive pandemic we now understand cigarette smoking to produce. — Allan M. Brandt, The Cigarette Century, 2007
sense of smell
NEW YORK (AP) -- Doctors are reporting that people infected with the pandemic virus may lose their sense of smell and perhaps taste.
The World Health Organization is looking into it, but some experts are already saying that changes in taste and smell might be a useful tool to screen people for infection.
They cite reports from South Korea, China and Italy. Virus infection is already a known cause of smell loss, and in some cases it can be permanent. But in cases of the pandemic virus, it looks more like a temporary effect.
New Wave
It's so quiet except for the french horn music playing on my radio. We have turned back the clock. It's 1950 and people are doing puzzles instead of going to the mall. People are sitting on their front porches having tea. Some folks are playing the piano with their doors and windows open. Some are playing chess. Others are reading books with cats in their laps. But people are also dying.
Opera
I console my frightened self with good poetry and classical music and OPERA. I LOVE OPERA. My joke is I must've been adopted. Nobody I knew listened to it. But I found it on my radio and was forever in love.
What the Gypsies Told my Grandmother while She was Still a Young Girl
by Charles Simic
War, illness and famine will make you their favorite
grandchild.
You'll be like a blind person watching a silent movie.
You'll chop onions and pieces of your heart
into the same hot skillet.
Your children will sleep in a suitcase tied with a rope.
Your husband will kiss your breasts every night
as if they were two gravestones.
Already the crows are grooming themselves
for you and your people.
Your oldest son will lie with flies on his lips
without smiling or lifting his hand.
You'll envy every ant you meet in your life
and every roadside weed.
Your body and soul will sit on separate stoops
chewing the same piece of gum.
Little cutie, are you for sale? the devil will say.
The undertaker will buy a toy for your grandson.
Your mind will be a hornet's nest even on your
deathbed.
You will pray to God but God will hang a sign
that He's not to be disturbed.
Question no further, that's all I know.
-Charles Simic, Walking the Black Cat by Charles Simic. Harcourt Brace & Company.
What did you expect?
What did you expect with a malignant narcissist con man as leader?
Malignant narcissists are the most malicious and destructive and can look like sociopaths. I was raised by one so I know. She is gone now but her damage reverberates on to 3 generations and most likely even more.
Malignant narcissists are the most malicious and destructive and can look like sociopaths. I was raised by one so I know. She is gone now but her damage reverberates on to 3 generations and most likely even more.
Monday, March 23, 2020
NY Governor Andrew Cuomo
We have all TRAUMA-BONDED with Cuomo at this time.
Andrew Cuomo
@NYGovCuomo
Making an announcement at the Javits Center in New York City. Watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-LXcRyOoYk
Governor Cuomo Announces Delivery of Equipment & Supplies at Javits Center Temporary Hospital
15,563 views
•Mar 23, 2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iN2mEVDmDWk
Article
Colson Whitehead
"Normal meant 'the past.' Normal was the unbroken idyll of life before. The present was a series of intervals differentiated from each other only by the degree of dread they contained. The future? The future was the clay in their hands."
@colsonwhitehead
'Zone One,' p. 65
Trigger
To hear DJT spout dangerous health strategies makes me insane. My mother who was also a narcissist and remarkably like DJT manipulated the world to suit her needs and desires. She poisoned her children in an effort to gain medical attention while attempting to workout her un-diagnosed mental illness. I must avoid radio TV and Internet accounts of DJT for my health and safety.
Doctor Weighs in
Article
Dr. Michael Fine was director of the R.I. Department of Health 2011-2015. He is a family physician.
Listen
(a few weeks out of date but still good)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvDM5gxGNiY&feature=youtu.be
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19)
Michael Fine MD and Kenneth Lin MD discuss the Coronavirus
Buddha
Irrigators channel waters; fletchers straighten arrows; carpenters bend wood; the wise master themselves.
-Buddha
Power Plays, Gatekeepers and Group Dynamics
I generally dislike groups, parties, gatherings, meetings, and group email.
I prefer people one at a time, at best.
My original family is all about power and bureaucracy of the group.
My siblings never matured enough to learn that there are other ways to behave than like our parents.
They are severely emotionally traumatized from decades of narcissistic abuse at the hands of their parents.
Now the next generation is suffering.
I find, the only way to break the cycle is to communicate to the best of your ability with humans of your choosing, one at a time.
I prefer people one at a time, at best.
My original family is all about power and bureaucracy of the group.
My siblings never matured enough to learn that there are other ways to behave than like our parents.
They are severely emotionally traumatized from decades of narcissistic abuse at the hands of their parents.
Now the next generation is suffering.
I find, the only way to break the cycle is to communicate to the best of your ability with humans of your choosing, one at a time.
Hidden Figures
Last night we watched Hidden Figures. The film we borrowed from our library. It was good. The opening scene had me weeping.
Wolf Kahn Quotes from OBIT
Wolf Kahn, celebrated painter of resplendent landscapes, dies at 92
Mr. Kahn, shown here with his painting “Uphill,” was renowned for the resplendent colors of his pastels. (Courtesy of Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY)
By
Emily Langer
March 19, 2020 at 4:02 PM EDT
Wolf Kahn, an artist who was evacuated from Nazi Germany as a child and settled in the United States, where he became renowned for his resplendent landscapes depicting beauty and permanence in an often uncertain world, died March 15 at his home in New York City. He was 92.
“After all, landscape is something that might be searching for roots,” he said in an oral history in the late 1970s with the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art. He added that “nature, which is unchanging,” gives one “solidity.”
“My choice of color is dictated by tact and decorum, stretched by an unholy desire to be outrageous,” he once told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “I want the color to be surprising to people without being offensive.
“He brings back from his survey of nature colors — magentas, purples, orange-pinks — that must be seen to be believed,” novelist John Updike wrote in an introduction to Mr. Kahn’s book “Wolf Kahn’s America: An Artist’s Travels” (2003), one of several collections of his works. “We do believe them; his images keep a sense of place and moment, though what strikes us first is their abstract gorgeousness. Gorgeous, but they do not leave the earth.”
“The environment in which my paintings grow best is at Broadway and 12th Street. I can see nature most clearly in my studio, undistracted by trees and skies,” he said in an interview quoted by the Forward. “Art being emotion recollected in tranquility, I constantly find Nature too emotional, and Broadway very tranquil.”
“My class bias comes from that, I suppose,” Mr. Kahn said. “I’ve always been very dubious about the rich, and much more in favor of . . . the less fortunate.”
Before attending the university, Mr. Kahn had been a studio assistant to Hans Hofmann, a German-born abstract expressionist who became a mentor.
“He didn’t believe in systems,” Mr. Kahn told the publication Vermont Arts & Living. “He said at some point some genius would arise who would know how to systematize color, but until then you have to use your intuition.”
“I have my own system for color, but I’ve never formalized it,” he added. “It all goes through my intuition instead of any knowledge. In fact I don’t believe in knowledge.”
Mr. Kahn continued painting until the end of his life, once remarking to the program “CBS Sunday Morning” that “as I get older, the blue gets bluer and the yellow gets yellower.”
“I hope to live to a very ripe old age,” he quipped, “because . . . who can tell how yellow the yellow [will] become?”
Art is “about intuition, imagination and fantasy,” Mr. Kahn told the Vermont arts publication. “Once you have your nose pointed in the right direction, you can start smelling something. It’s not about expertise. I don’t believe in it. I believe in innocence of spirit.”
Obit
Sunday, March 22, 2020
Victor Frankl
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
Victor Frankl, Austrian Neurologist, Holocaust Survivor
Molly Jong-Fast
I love this article sooo much because it's beautiful and I feel the SAME WAY!!!
Opinion
Why We Are Crushing on Andrew Cuomo Right Now
https://www.vogue.com/article/andrew-cuomo-why-we-love-him-now-coronavirus
By Molly Jong-Fast
March 22, 2020
Walter Benjamin
"Just as the creator seeks solitude, the destroyer must be constantly surrounded by people..."
— Walter Benjamin
Meditations in an Emergency
https://www.southcoasttoday.com/opinion/20200322/meditations-in-emergency-poetry-for-coronavirus-outbreak
You don’t want me to go where you go. There won’t be any mail downstairs. And the country is less funny, not just darker.
But what struck me most in reading this, is that it wasn’t necessarily these poems I needed — it was poetry in general.
The lights are out and the buildings shuttered and the last can of beans is rolling down the supermarket floor.
I needed some kind of poetry. Something that gave me hope. Some bit of beauty. Something that spoke about the best of humanity.
Walking Therapy
We just walked through downtown and then continued on to Harris Pond, to the island in the back so Romeo could swim fetching sticks. Then we walked home. A beautiful day!
Talya Minsberg
Running From Coronavirus: A Back-to-Basics Exercise Boom
With gyms and pools closed and sports leagues shut down, a miniboom is emerging in running, a natural for social distancing.
By Talya Minsberg
In this time, as more and more people hit their parks, streets and trails, make sure to nod at your fellow runner.
We’re all still out here.
peanutbutter and pineapple pandemic sandwich
peanutbutter and pineapple sandwich
just invented and ate it, yum.
just invented and ate it, yum.
Aleksandar Hemon
A catastrophe, in other words, might be a trap, but it also allows for a narrative escape. If you were lucky enough to have survived the catastrophic plot twist, you get to tell the story—you must tell the story.
https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/disaster/katastrofa
Aleksandar Hemon
Aleksandar Hemon was born in Sarajevo in 1964. In 1992, while Hemon was in a journalist exchange program in Chicago, war broke out in Bosnia. He became a political refugee, living for the past twenty-four years in Chicago. Hemon is the author of six books, most recently the novel The Making of Zombie Wars.
Lessons from a Bean-Cooking INTROVERT
Stay home and cook beans.
I ran away from home as a teen and learned to cook beans and rice in a pressure cooker. Life got better from there. I've never stopped my love of cooking, eating + sharing beans. I've lived through 4 recessions so far. My cupboard is always stocked with bags of beans rice masa and bread flour.
Step 1. rinse beans.
2. Soak beans overnight.
or 3. boil them covered in water at least an inch or 2 for 3 minutes and let them soak for an hour
Then you can cook them!
4. Let them simmer them on the stove for 2 hours (stick around so the pot doesn't burn). Add a TBSP of olive oil. Add Adobo and Kosher salt. Enjoy!
*Instant pot method: rinse beans, cover beans in water add TBSP Olive oil cook for an hour. Then add Adobo or salt. Enjoy!
*Soak overnight and put in Instant pot the next day with water and TBSP Olive oil. Cook for 18 minutes in instant pot or pressure cooker. (don't forget the olive oil, it prevents clogging of the pressure cooker/ instant pot) Then when done let is have a natural release.
I ran away from home as a teen and learned to cook beans and rice in a pressure cooker. Life got better from there. I've never stopped my love of cooking, eating + sharing beans. I've lived through 4 recessions so far. My cupboard is always stocked with bags of beans rice masa and bread flour.
Step 1. rinse beans.
2. Soak beans overnight.
or 3. boil them covered in water at least an inch or 2 for 3 minutes and let them soak for an hour
Then you can cook them!
4. Let them simmer them on the stove for 2 hours (stick around so the pot doesn't burn). Add a TBSP of olive oil. Add Adobo and Kosher salt. Enjoy!
*Instant pot method: rinse beans, cover beans in water add TBSP Olive oil cook for an hour. Then add Adobo or salt. Enjoy!
*Soak overnight and put in Instant pot the next day with water and TBSP Olive oil. Cook for 18 minutes in instant pot or pressure cooker. (don't forget the olive oil, it prevents clogging of the pressure cooker/ instant pot) Then when done let is have a natural release.
Good Morning Aristotle
“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”
― Aristotle
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
― Aristotle, Metaphysics
“What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.”
― Aristotle
“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.”
― Aristotle
“Hope is a waking dream.”
― Aristotle
“No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.”
― Aristotle
“Happiness depends upon ourselves.”
― Aristotle
“Anybody can become angry — that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way — that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.”
― Aristotle
“Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives - choice, not chance, determines your destiny.”
― Aristotle
“Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.”
― Aristotle
“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.”
― Aristotle
“A friend to all is a friend to none.”
― Aristotle
“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”
― Aristotle
“Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well.”
― Aristotle
“To perceive is to suffer.”
― Aristotle
“He who has overcome his fears will truly be free.”
― Aristotle
“Those who know, do. Those that understand, teach.”
― Aristotle
“The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living differ from the dead.”
― Aristotle
“Whosoever is delighted in solitude, is either a wild beast or a god.”
― Aristotle
“I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies, for the hardest victory is over self.”
― Aristotle
“Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.”
― Aristotle
“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.”
― Aristotle
“It is not enough to win a war; it is more important to organize the peace.”
― Aristotle
“The antidote for fifty enemies is one friend.”
― Aristotle
“The high-minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think.”
― Aristotle
“Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.”
― Aristotle
“To write well, express yourself like the common people, but think like a wise man.”
― Aristotle
“One swallow does not make a summer, neither does one fine day; similarly one day or brief time of happiness does not make a person entirely happy.”
― Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics
“Learning is not child's play; we cannot learn without pain.”
― Aristotle
“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
― Aristotle
reconnecting with family
all the silt gets stirred up
me: a raging monster
husband: did you expect them to behave BETTER in a CRISIS?
When Beans have their day in the SUN
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/22/business/coronavirus-beans-sales.html
A Boom Time for the Bean Industry
“It’s just shocking,” one bean supplier said. “I used to be the loneliest man at the farmer’s market.”
By David Yaffe-Bellany
March 22, 2020, 4:14 a.m. ET
remember, this was expected
Aaron E. Carroll
@aaronecarroll
As we watch the numbers get worse, remember this was expected.
1) They will double every 3 days, because that's what we see in other countries.
2) As we start to test more (good!) we will pick up more infections.
3) All the infections coming out now happened before distancing.
Children will Listen
“Careful the things you say,
Children will listen.
Careful the things you do,
Children will see.
And learn.
Children may not obey
But children will listen.
Children will look to you
For which way to turn,
To learn what to be.
Careful before you say,
"Listen to me."
Children will listen.”
― Stephen Sondheim, Into the Woods
Sometimes people leave you
“Sometimes people leave you halfway through the wood. Others may deceive you - you decide what's good. You decide alone, but no one is alone.
People make mistakes. Fathers, mothers, people make mistakes, holding to their own, thinking they're alone. Honor their mistakes. Fight for their mistakes.
Witches can be right. Giants can be good. You decide what's right. You decide what's good.”
― Stephen Sondheim, Into the Woods
Stephen Sondheim
It's the birthday of composer and songwriter Stephen Sondheim
"I prefer neurotic people. I like to hear rumblings beneath the surface."
-Stephen Sondheim
Crucial, Not Optional
Start the day right, I remind myself. It helps. Take a shower, put on clean clothes, walk Romeo downtown, write in your journal. All of these things are crucial not optional.
Steve Edwards
You might see people complaining about what seem like small issues. Maybe they are. Also possible that this moment amplifies everything & what you’re seeing is someone’s last straw.
-Steve Edwards
@The_Big_Quiet
This City
The city is SINCERE, KIND, lovable + small. We can do this here. Fabulous Mayor, fabulous police+fire depts, fabulous residents. Yes plenty of problems to go around but I LOVE this place, problems and all. The City taught me people ARE basically GOOD. I came away from my childhood not knowing that.
Phoebe Martone
I put a gallon of tap water in the car.
I put it into something that won't tip over.
Then I put a bar of soap in a ziplock.
This way, I am ready to wash my hands wherever I am
Mom
PS I also have a small spray bottle in my car of isopropyl alcohol. I use it constantly.
-Phoebe Martone 3/22/2020
Saturday, March 21, 2020
Danger, Danger!
DOJ Wants to Suspend Certain Constitutional Rights During Coronavirus Emergency
The Department of Justice has secretly asked Congress for the ability to detain arrested people “indefinitely” in addition to other powers that one expert called “terrifying”
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/doj-suspend-constitutional-rights-coronavirus-970935/
Andrew Sullivan
Living in a plague is just an intensified way of living. It merely unveils the radical uncertainty of life that is already here, and puts it into far sharper focus.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/andrew-sullivan-how-to-survive-the-coronavirus-pandemic.html
Trump's Jim Jones Moment
Anthony Fauci was very clear on this yesterday. Hydroxychloroquine is approved for malaria. But it is not an innocuous drug, certainly not if people are self-medicating. There are already reports out of Lagos, Nigeria of Hydroxychloroquine poisoning because of people self-medicating with the drug
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/miscellaneous-updates-1
Time Dog
One woman I know is timed by her husband when she leaves the house for a walk. She is not allowed to socialize on normal days. If she takes "too long" returning home he'll get in his car and drive to see if she's been murdered or kidnapped. This domestic abuse disguised as caring. I think so.
Gorgeous Day
Yellow caution tape surrounding the EMPTY playground on our street.
But a gorgeous day nonetheless!
But a gorgeous day nonetheless!
By Brad Petrishen
Leominster ER doctor: ‘We are at war,’ and the soldiers need help
By Brad Petrishen
Telegram & Gazette Staff
@BPetrishenTG
Walking Around
We had a walk and saw several people we know drive by. Now I'm thinking about the 'we're all in it together' wave vs the 'go away' wave.
Los Van Van
0:00 / 9:03
JUAN FORMELL Y LOS VAN VAN - Somos Cubanos (En Vivo) 16 de 16
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqRjgfL7hsw
JUAN FORMELL Y LOS VAN VAN - Somos Cubanos (En Vivo) 16 de 16
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqRjgfL7hsw
Katie Didn't
Katie Didn't
Peanuts
Butter
@Pork_Chop_Hair
·
14h
Me [pouring a can of baked beans into a wine glass]: I wouldn’t say quarantine has changed me, no
Astounding and Amazing
I was concerned about Mike the schizophrenic who lives on the streets. People have been feeding and clothing him for years but now downtown is shut down. I called Linda in City hall and my favorite Det at WPD and the Pastor who runs the Men's shelter and told them why I was worried about Mike. The Det. immediately checked on him and told him if he needs anything to come to WPD. The next day Linda bought him breakfast and the Pastor wrote me a beautiful letter and told me of the challenges in trying to get Mike the help he needs. This is an example of what makes Woonsocket astounding and amazing.
A Hero of Our Time
“Love, like fire, goes out without fuel.”
― Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time
“He in his madness prays for storms, and dreams that storms will bring him peace”
― Mikhail Lermontov
“In the first place, [his eyes] never laughed when he laughed. Have you ever noticed this peculiarity some people have? It is either the sign of an evil nature or of a profound and lasting sorrow.”
― Lermontov a, Un Héros de notre temps. (précédé de) La Princesse Ligovskoï
“I was ready to love the whole world, but no one understood me, and I learned to hate.”
― Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time
“An unusual beginning must have an unusual end.”
― Lermontov, Un Héros de notre temps. (précédé de) La Princesse Ligovskoï
“We practically always excuse things when we understand them”
― Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time
“Yes, such has been my lot since childhood. Everyone read signs of non-existent evil traits in my features. But since they were expected to be there, they did make their appearance. Because I was reserved, they said I was sly, so I grew reticent. I was keenly aware of good and evil, but instead of being indulged I was insulted and so I became spiteful. I was sulky while other children were merry and talkative, but though I felt superior to them I was considered inferior. So I grew envious. I was ready to love the whole world, but no one understood me, and I learned to hate. My cheerless youth passed in conflict with myself and society, and fearing ridicule I buried my finest feelings deep in my heart, and there they died. I spoke the truth, but nobody believed me, so I began to practice duplicity. Having come to know society and its mainsprings, I became versed in the art of living and saw how others were happy without that proficiency, enjoying for free the favors I had so painfully striven for. It was then that despair was born in my heart--not the despair that is cured with a pistol, but a cold, impotent desperation, concealed under a polite exterior and a good-natured smile. I became a moral cripple; I had lost one half of my soul, for it had shriveled, dried up and died, and I had cut it off and cast it away, while the other half stirred and lived, adapted to serve every comer. No one noticed this, because no one suspected there had been another half. Now, however, you have awakened memories of it in me, and what I have just done is to read its epitaph to you. Many regard all epitaphs as ridiculous, but I do not, particularly when I remember what rests beneath them.”
― Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time
“Out of life's storm I carried only a few ideas - and not one feeling.”
― Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time
“What of it? If I die, I die. It will be no great loss to the world, and I am thoroughly bored with life. I am like a man yawning at a ball; the only reason he does not go home to bed is that his carriage has not arrived yet.”
― Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time
“Afraid of decision, I buried my finer feelings in the depths of my heart and they died there.”
― Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time
“I was modest--they accused me of being crafty: I became secretive. I felt deeply good and evil--nobody caressed me, everybody offended me: I became rancorous. I was gloomy--other children were merry and talkative. I felt myself superior to them--but was considered inferior: I became envious. I was ready to love the whole world--none understood me: and I learned to hate.”
― Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time
“my love had grown one with my soul; it became darker, but did not go out”
― Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero Of Our Time
“Tell me,” she finally whispered, “is it fun for you to torture me? . . . I should really hate you. Ever since we have known each other, you have given me nothing but suffering . . .” Her voice trembled, she leaned toward me, and lowered her head onto my breast.
“Perhaps,” I thought, “this is exactly why you loved me: joys are forgotten, but sadness, never . . .”
― Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time
“I was lying, but I wanted to rouse him. I have an inborn urge to contradict; my whole life has been a mere chain of sad and futile opposition to the dictates of either heart or reason. The presence of an enthusiast makes me as cold as a midwinter's day, and, I believe, frequent association with a listless phlegmatic would make me an impassioned dreamer.”
― Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time
“I love enemies, though not in the Christian way. They amuse me, excite my blood. Being always on one’s guard, catching every glance, the significance of every word, guessing at intentions, frustrating their plots, pretending to be tricked, and suddenly, with a shove, upturning the whole enormous and arduously built edifice of their cunning and schemes—that’s what I call life.”
― Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time
“I am not capable of true friendship. One of the two friends is always the slave of the other, although, often, neither of the two admits this to himself.”
― Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time
“I have an unfortunate character; whether it is my upbringing that made me like that or God who created me so, I do not know. I know only that if I cause unhappiness to others, I myself am no less happy. I realize this is poor consolation for them - but the fact remains that it is so. In my early youth, after leaving the guardianship of my parents, I plunged into all the pleasures money could buy, and naturally these pleasures grew distasteful to me. Then I went into high society, but soon enough grew tired of it; I fell in love with beautiful society women and was loved by them, but their love only aggravated my imagination and vanity while my heart remained desolate... I began to read and to study, but wearied of learning, too; I saw that neither fame nor happiness depended on it in the slightest, for the happiest people were the ignorant, and fame was a matter of luck, to achieve which you only had to be shrewd...”
― Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time
“A strange thing, the human heart in general, and woman's heart in particular.”
― Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time
“Women only love those that they don’t know.”
― Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time
“We survive on novelty, so much less demanding than commitment.”
― Mikhail Lermontov
“I prefer to doubt everything. Such a disposition does not preclude a resolute character. On the contrary, as far as I am concerned, I always advance more boldly when I don't know what is waiting me for me. After all, nothing worse than death can happen-and death you can't escape!”
― Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time
“There are two men in me--one lives in the full sense of the word, the other reasons and passes judgment on the first. The first will perhaps take leave of you and the world forever in an hour now; and the second . . . the second?”
― Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time
“So? If I die, then I die! The loss to the world won’t be great. Yes, and I’m fairly bored with myself already. I am like a man who is yawning at a ball, whose reason for not going home to bed is only that his carriage hasn’t arrived yet. But the carriage is ready . . . farewell!
I run through the memory of my past in its entirety and can’t help asking myself: Why have I lived? For what purpose was I born? . . .
There probably was one once, and I probably did have a lofty calling, because I feel a boundless strength in my soul . . .
But I didn’t divine this calling. I was carried away with the baits of passion, empty and unrewarding. I came out of their crucible as hard and cold as iron, but I had lost forever the ardor for noble aspirations, the best flower of life.
Since then, how many times have I played the role of the ax in the hands of fate! Like an instrument of execution, I fell on the head of doomed martyrs, often without malice, always without regret . . .
My love never brought anyone happiness, because I never sacrificed anything for those I loved: I loved for myself, for my personal pleasure.
I was simply satisfying a strange need of the heart, with greediness, swallowing their feelings, their joys, their suffering—and was never sated. Just as a man, tormented by hunger, goes to sleep in exhaustion and dreams of sumptuous dishes and sparkling wine before him. He devours the airy gifts of his imagination with rapture, and he feels easier. But as soon as he wakes: the dream disappears . . . and all that remains is hunger and despair redoubled!
And, maybe, I will die tomorrow! . . . And not one being on this earth will have ever understood me totally. Some thought of me as worse, some as better, than I actually am . . . Some will say “he was a good fellow,” others will say I was a swine. Both one and the other would be wrong.
Given this, does it seem worth the effort to live? And yet, you live, out of curiosity, always wanting something new . . . Amusing and vexing!”
― Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time
“Oh vanity! You are the lever with which Archimedes wanted to raise the earthly globe!”
― Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time
“If only people thought a little more about it, they would see that life is not worrying about so much.”
― Mikhail Lermontov
“The history of a man's soul, even the pettiest soul, is hardly less interesting and useful than the history of a whole people; especially when the former is the result of the observations of a mature mind upon itself, and has been written without any egotistical desire of arousing sympathy or astonishment. Rousseau's Confessions has precisely this defect – he read it to his friends.”
― Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time
Books by Mikhail Lermontov
A Hero of Our Time A Hero of Our Time
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