- Pat the steak dry with paper towels. Season both sides with salt and let stand at room temperature, 30 minutes to 1 hour, or refrigerate up to 72 hours. (If refrigerating, bring the steak back to room temperature before cooking by resting for 1 hour.) Pat dry with paper towels and season with more salt and pepper. Press the pepper into the steak to adhere.
- In a large skillet, melt the butter with the oil over medium-high heat. When the butter foam subsides, add the steak. Sear until a brown crust forms, about 2 minutes per side. Use strong tongs to press the edge of the steak into the pan, rolling and cooking edges until the fat is rendered. Return steak to pan flat-side down, reduce heat to medium, and cook until desired degree of doneness, about 2–2½ minutes for medium rare. For medium rare, the internal temperature should be 125–130°F, internal color should be an opaque, lighter red, and the texture should be just resilient to the touch—droplets of red juice should rise to the surface of the steak. Cooking time will vary based on steak thickness.
- Remove
the steak from pan and transfer to a cutting board or plate, tent with
foil, and rest for 5–20 minutes. This is a good time to make a simple
pan sauce, if desired. Internal temperature will increase about 5°F
during resting. Source
Sunday, January 31, 2021
Seared Sirloin Steak
Ingredients
Seasoning my cast iron
I love seasoning my cast iron at 450 degrees with Crisco. I turn the completely greased pan upside down on the oven rack and it drains onto aluminum foil. It bakes on and is as strong as an enamel coating.
Sun Dog
We walked to PB Cemetery and looked up and spotted a sun dog. The storm will be here soon.
TonightA slight chance of snow after 4am. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 20. Calm wind becoming northeast around 6 mph after midnight. Chance of precipitation is 20%.MondaySnow, mainly after 10am. The snow could be heavy at times. High near 33. Northeast wind 7 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New snow accumulation of 5 to 9 inches possible.Monday NightSnow before 4am, then rain and snow likely. The snow could be heavy at times. Low around 31. Blustery, with a northeast wind 17 to 20 mph, with gusts as high as 32 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 3 to 7 inches possible.**********************************************************************************************************************************TuesdayRain and snow likely before 8am, then snow likely between 8am and 11am, then a chance of rain and snow after 11am. Cloudy, with a high near 36. North wind 11 to 17 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New snow accumulation of less than one inch possible.Tuesday NightA chance of snow showers. Cloudy, with a low around 26. North wind 6 to 9 mph. Chance of precipitation is 40%. New snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible.WednesdayA slight chance of snow showers before noon. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 35. Northwest wind 6 to 8 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%.
Baking Seasoning Reheating
I am baking 8 mini sourdough loaves (top rack) while also seasoning my 12" skillet (upside down) on rack #2. I'm reheating last nights pizza on the floor of the oven. All of this is packed into my tiny 1960 Vintage THERMADOR wall oven.
Allergy Medicine
My doctor prescribed this for severe allergies and it has made a difference on day one. AMEN.
Bring me the Head
Sautee a head of chopped cabbage add soy sauce sriracha and dash of balsamic or any kind of vinegar, kosher salt, and sprinkle home-roasted sunflower seeds. add carrots for COLOR. Yum! The sunflower seeds taste like bacon!
Sense of Smell
studying the way human genetics affect the way we experience smell and taste
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/28/magazine/covid-smell-science.html
I LOVE Winter
In winter, a time of scarcity, she went on, he is a cautionary tale to remember the good of the community, beyond the self. Winter is known as the hungry time, the dangerous time, she said, and people counted their age not by years but by how many winters they have survived — that man has 70 winters, this woman has 16. They wintered in small family groups, not villages, to spread out the demand on the land.
“I’ve stopped trying to handle the darkness. I let the darkness handle me instead,” she said. “Most of the time all it wants to do is hold me for a while — slow me down, keep me from running, cover me up long enough to remember that being in the dark doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with me. It means I’m alive, and this is part of the deal.”
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/20/us/how-to-survive-winter.html
Saturday, January 30, 2021
Roasting Sunflower Seeds
I heat raw sunflower seeds in my iron skillet while stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. They roast fast. Pay attention so they don't burn. Then I splash soy sauce or tamari or hot sauce and stir. Let them cool. Then I place them in an airtight glass jar to keep in a cool dark cupboard. They are delicious as a beer-snack or sprinkled on vegetables or even a peanut butter or cheese sandwich.
George Bernard Shaw
I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.
- George Bernard Shaw
Observation
Too many of my upper middle class acquaintances are control freaks with entitlement problems. That's all I have to say.
Marion Cunningham: Let’s Bring Back the Cabbage
Marion Cunningham in Learning to Cook has a recipe for cabbage,
sunflower seeds and bacon. To me sunflower seeds when roasted TASTE LIKE
BACON. So I'm making it.
By MARION CUNNINGHAM
It seems that no one uses cabbage any more except in coleslaw. But it’s a splendid vegetable, especially with corned beef, game, pork or smoked meats. This recipe, Blanche’s Cabbage with Bacon, is a great one to try. It takes only minutes to fix and has pleased many people who have visited me and stayed for lunch or supper on the spur of the moment. The cabbage turns a lovely celery-green color as it blanches. This is the dish to have with sausage (I use a Polish kielbasa). A head of cabbage torn into bite-size pieces looks like a huge amount, but it wilts and cooks down to serve four ordinary appetites. I think this dish will make you a cabbage fan.
When you buy cabbage, look for crisp, firm, heavy heads with good color. Avoid those with blemishes or loose leaves.
*
Cunningham’s newest book is “Learning to Cook With Marion Cunningham” (Alfred A. Knopf, 1999).
Blanche’s Cabbage With Bacon
Active Work Time: 15 minutes * Total Preparation Time: 30 minutes
1 (2-to 2 1/2-pound) head cabbage
1/4 pound bacon (4 or 5 slices)
1Using a small paring knife, cut the core out of the cabbage head. Separate the leaves. Cut the thick center core from each leaf and tear the leaves into large bite-size pieces. Set aside.
2Stack the strips of bacon, one on top of the other, and cut them crosswise into half-inch pieces.
3Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Heat a skillet over medium heat, and when it feels hot-put your hand about 1 inch from the bottom of the skillet to check the heat-spread the pieces of bacon over the bottom of the skillet. Cook the bacon, using a fork to move it around, until the pieces are golden brown, 5 to 7 minutes. Remove the bacon to paper towels to drain and blot it to remove any fat.
4Strain the bacon fat, reserving 4 tablespoons. In a small bowl, mix the reserved bacon fat, cider vinegar, sugar and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Set aside.
5Plunge the cabbage into the boiling water and blanch for 12 seconds. Immediately drain the cabbage and toss it in a bowl with the bacon pieces and the sugar mixture. Salt to taste, mix well and serve.
Millet
Millet tastes like corn to me, and I have fallen in love with it. Millet with sunflower seeds makes a great breakfast porridge. Onion broccoli carrot eggplant stir fry on top for supper.
Kurt Vonnegut
There is only one genuinely ghastly thing hack jobs do to writers, and that is to waste their precious time.
KURT VONNEGUT
Cicely Tyson
“Whatever good I have accomplished as an actress I believe came in direct proportion to my efforts to portray Black women who have made positive contributions to my heritage.”
Cicely Tyson
In a remarkable career of seven decades, Ms. Tyson broke ground for serious Black actors by refusing to take parts that demeaned Black people. She urged Black colleagues to do the same, and often went without work. She was critical of films and television programs that cast Black characters as criminal, servile or immoral, and insisted that African-Americans, even if poor or downtrodden, should be portrayed with dignity.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/28/obituaries/cicely-tyson-dead.html
Welty
The first act of insight is throw away the labels. In fiction, while we do not necessarily write about ourselves, we write out of ourselves, using ourselves; what we learn from, what we are sensitive to, what we feel strongly about--these become our characters and go to make our plots. Characters in fiction are conceived from within, and they have, accordingly, their own interior life; they are individuals every time.
EUDORA WELTY
turning it slightly
There is no nobler chore in the universe than holding up the mirror of reality and turning it slightly, so we have a new and different perception of the commonplace, the everyday, the “normal,” the obvious. People are reflected in the glass. The fantasy situation into which you thrust them is the mirror itself. And what we are shown should illuminate and alter our perception of the world around us. Failing that, you have failed totally.
HARLAN ELLISON
Magic
The actual mechanics of songwriting is only understandable up to a certain point and it’s frustrating because it’s at that point that it begins to matter. Creativity is an act of magic rising up from your subconscious. It feels wonderful every time it happens, and I’ve learned to live with the anxiety of it not happening over long periods of time.
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
Raymond Carver
Evan Connell said once that he knew he was finished with a short story when he found himself going through it and taking out commas and then going through the story again and putting the commas back in the same places. I like that way of working on something. I respect that kind of care for what is being done. That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones, with the punctuation in the right places so that they can best say what they are meant to say. If the words are heavy with the writer's own unbridled emotions, or if they are imprecise and inaccurate for some other reason – if the worlds are in any way blurred – the reader's eyes will slide right over them and nothing will be achieved. Henry James called this sort of hapless writing “weak specification.”
RAYMOND CARVER
Vanessa Redgrave birthday
“I've still got to do something to help, however tiny it is. I always think of the old Hebrew saying, which is translated roughly into, 'He who saves one life saves the world,' because it's pretty ghastly to think of all the people we're not saving.”
Vanessa Redgrave on her birthday today
George Bernard Shaw
Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.
George Bernard Shaw
Friday, January 29, 2021
Nikolai V. Gogol
“The longer and more carefully we look at a funny story, the sadder it becomes.”
― Nikolai V. Gogol
“I am fated to journey hand in hand with my strange heroes and to survey the surging immensity of life, to survey it through the laughter that all can see and through the tears unseen and unknown by anyone.”
― Nikolai Gogol“I am who I am and that's who I am”
― Nikolai Gogol, in The Government Inspector presented by the EGBA and performed by the ORAD“However stupid a fool's words may be, they are sometimes enough to confound an intelligent man.”
― Nikolai Gogol, Dead Souls“Two turtle doves will show thee
Where my cold ashes lie
And sadly murmuring tell thee
How in tears I did die”
― Nikolai Gogol“We have the marvelous gift of making everything insignificant.”
― Nikolai Gogol“Perfect nonsense goes on in the world. Sometimes there is no plausibility at all”
― Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, The Nose“Always think of what is useful and not what is beautiful. Beauty will come of its own accord.”
― Nikolai Gogol“There are occasions when a woman, no matter how weak and impotent in character she may be in comparison with a man, will yet suddenly become not only harder than any man, but even harder than anything and everything in the world.”
― Nikolai Gogol, Dead Souls“...nothing could be more pleasant than to live in solitude, enjoy the spectacle of nature, and occasionally read some book... ...”
― Nickolai Gogol“But wise is the man who disdains no character, but with searching glance explores him to the root and cause of all.”
― Nikolai V. Gogol, Dead Souls“They don’t listen to me, they don’t hear me, they don’t see me.”
― Nikolai Gogol, Diary of a Madman and Other Stories“You can't imagine how stupid the whole world has grown nowadays. The things these scribblers write! ”
― Nikolai V. Gogol, Dead Souls“What is stronger in us — passion or habit? Or are all the violent impulses, all the whirl of our desires and turbulent passions, only the consequence of our ardent age, and is it only through youth that they seem deep and shattering?”
― Nikolai Gogol“But youth has a future. The closer he came to graduation, the more his heart beat. He said to himself: “This is still not life, this is only the preparation for life.”
― Nikolai Gogol, Dead Souls“The current generation now sees everything clearly, it marvels at the errors, it laughs at the folly of its ancestors, not seeing that this chronicle is all overscored by divine fire, that every letter of it cries out, that from everywhere the piercing finger is pointed at it, at this current generation; but the current generation laughs and presumptuously, proudly begins a series of new errors, at which their descendants will also laugh afterwards.”
― Nikolai Gogol, Dead Souls“Happy the writer who, passing by characters that are boring, disgusting, shocking in their mournful reality, approaches characters that manifest the lofty dignity of man, who from the great pool of daily whirling images has chosen only the rare exceptions, who has never once betrayed the exalted turning of his lyre, nor descended from his height to his poor, insignificant brethren, and, without touching the ground, has given the whole of himself to his elevated images so far removed from it. Twice enviable is his beautiful lot: he is among them as in his own family; and meanwhile his fame spreads loud and far. With entrancing smoke he has clouded people's eyes; he has flattered them wondrously, concealing what is mournful in life, showing them a beautiful man. Everything rushes after him, applauding, and flies off following his triumphal chariot. Great world poet they name him, soaring high above all other geniuses in the world, as the eagle soars above the other high fliers. At the mere mention of his name, young ardent hearts are filled with trembling, responsive tears shine in all eyes...No one equals him in power--he is God! But such is not the lot, and other is the destiny of the writer who has dared to call forth all that is before our eyes every moment and which our indifferent eyes do not see--all the stupendous mire of trivia in which our life in entangled, the whole depth of cold, fragmented, everyday characters that swarm over our often bitter and boring earthly path, and with the firm strength of his implacable chisel dares to present them roundly and vividly before the eyes of all people! It is not for him to win people's applause, not for him to behold the grateful tears and unanimous rapture of the souls he has stirred; no sixteen-year-old girl will come flying to meet him with her head in a whirl and heroic enthusiasm; it is not for him to forget himself in the sweet enchantment of sounds he himself has evoked; it is not for him, finally, to escape contemporary judgment, hypocritically callous contemporary judgment, which will call insignificant and mean the creations he has fostered, will allot him a contemptible corner in the ranks of writers who insult mankind, will ascribe to him the quality of the heroes he has portrayed, will deny him heart, and soul, and the divine flame of talent. For contemporary judgment does not recognize that equally wondrous are the glasses that observe the sun and those that look at the movement of inconspicuous insect; for contemporary judgment does not recognize that much depth of soul is needed to light up the picture drawn from contemptible life and elevate it into a pearl of creation; for contemporary judgment does not recognize that lofty ecstatic laughter is worthy to stand beside the lofty lyrical impulse, and that a whole abyss separates it from the antics of the street-fair clown! This contemporary judgment does not recognize; and will turn it all into a reproach and abuse of the unrecognized writer; with no sharing, no response, no sympathy, like a familyless wayfarer, he will be left alone in the middle of the road. Grim is his path, and bitterly he will feel his solitude.”
― Nikolai Gogol, Dead Souls“It is no use to blame the looking glass if your face is awry.”
― Nikolai Gogol, The Inspector General“Countless as the sands of the sea are human passions.”
― Nikolai Gógol“Everywhere across whatever sorrows of which our life is woven, some radiant joy will gaily flash past.”
― Nikolai Gogol“He who has talent in him must be purer in soul than anyone else. Another will be forgiven much, but to him it will not be forgiven. A man who leaves the house in bright, festive clothes needs only one drop of mud splashed from under a wheel, and people all surround him, point their fingers at him, and talk about his slovenliness, while the same people ignore many spots on other passers-by who are wearing everyday clothes. For on everyday clothes the spots do not show.”
― Nikolai Gogol, The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol“But nothing is lasting in this world. Even joy begins to fade after only one minute. Two minutes later, and it is weaker still, until finally it is swallowed up in our everyday, prosaic state of mind, just as a ripple made by a pebble gradually merges with the smooth surface of the water.”
― Nikolai Gogol, The Nose“...how much savage coarseness is concealed in refined, cultivated manners...”
― Nikolai Gogol“in his mind, nothing could be more delightful than to live in solitude, and enjoy the spectacle of nature, and sometimes read some book or other.”
― Nikolai Gogol, Dead Souls“Let me warn you, if you start chasing after views, you'll be left without bread and without views”
― Nikolai Gogol“Countless as the sands of sea are human passions, and not all of them are alike, and all of them, base and noble alike, are at first obedient to man and only later on become his terrible masters.”
― Gogol Nikolai Gogol, Dead Souls
Today has been so surreal
Today has been so surreal starting with an 8 degree day and a swim at our YMCA pool at 6 AM. I was dropped off back home at 7AM and I was on my porch in a wet bathing suit fumbling with my keys trying to get back into my house. 8 degrees and wet.
I rage-emailed a friend. This was affectionate high-test advice about the artist's life.
I made pizza dough. Even though I am sick as a dog. I hope to eat again.
I've been awaiting a call from my doctor concerning JUNIPER ALLERGIES tearing up my stomach. FIRE HOSE diarrhea is not fun. Antihistamines made me sicker. Being a creature is hard.
I do not know how to log into the patient portal. After 4 tries I got locked out.
A call came in for a prescription A NASAL spray for my stomach?
I guess if one orifice doesn't work try another.
CB radio blasts came in over my classical radio station "Hello, hello" I heard out of my radio. I unplugged it.
I was on hold at Dr. office for 20 minutes.
Fagheddabout it.
I hung up. I'd rather die
than be on hold.
Now I am drinking a beer. I don't normally drink but it was the only thing that spoke to me when I opened the fridge.
Happy Friday.
Pizza Night
I dusted off my kitchen aid mixer and made semolina pizza dough. I threw in cooked millet and cornmeal olive oil whole wheat starter, ww flour, bread flour and AP flour. I am sick as a dog from Juniper-pollen allergies but maybe I will be all better by supper time. Meanwhile I am defrosting my homemade tomato sauce.
UPDATE: the leftover dough was shaped into mini loaves and made the best bread ever!
Zoje Stage
“Sometimes she struggled with resentment watching her family eat a meal that she prepared. People took eating and shitting for granted, like the continuous beating of their hearts, the inevitable protection of their skin. They didn't think about their intestines doing everything wrong, fucking up the basic process of digestion.”
― Zoje Stage, Baby Teeth
Chirp Chirp!
I need to replace the battery on my smoke alarm but even standing on a chair I am two inches shy of reaching it. I could try to stand on a stack of slippery encyclopedias and end up falling down the stairs or I could wait until my husband comes home. My neighbor is 6 inches taller than me but she is blind. You can't win sometimes.
UPDATE: found my tall red studio stool to stand on and reached the offending battery. Now dog and human are happy.
Why does chocolate taste better in the morning?
I just stood on my porch in a wet bathing suit trying to get back into the house. It's 8 degrees out. Us swim ladies are determined to get our aqua- hydropsychotherapy no matter what.
I came in the house and heard a chirp. It wasn't a bird, it was smoke alarm. I grabbed a chair and dismantled the closest one. Good. I heated up my coffee and sat down to read. Then CHIRP!
I must've taken down the wrong one. This requires chocolate! I ate a square of dark chocolate and a peanut butter Christmas cookie from my husband's student for breakfast.
Yes, I am slow. We are just getting to the holiday cookies now.
Therapeutic Letter Writing to Find Meaning
Ultimately, therapeutic letter writing gives you a voice, particularly if you find it difficult to put your experience into words. It can become a medium when you are reluctant to open up to your therapist or group. It also ensures that you have been accurately heard, providing you with the freedom to define your own experience, uninterrupted, and at your own pace. A letter written, but not sent or seen by anyone else, is yours. Just yours. The Write Way to Find Meaning: Therapeutic Letter Writing Part 1
Slum House for Sale
The slum house next door is for sale. I hope a resident landlord buys it and fixes it up. That's the only way to break the cycle of abuse to this building and the neighborhood.
Here's an example of how it goes there: The tenants lock their dog on the unstable balcony so he'll pee and poop and then they shovel it off and it falls onto the neighbor's patio below.
The smoke alarms have been chirping for 6 years! A no-good landlord attracts no-good tenants.
Thursday, January 28, 2021
Sketch Artist
“That’s why I do this, to help get a bad guy off the street,” he said, putting away his pencils. “But also, I like to draw.”
Meet Jocelyn Park, the artist behind the viral sketch of a Lancaster Central Market thief that led to an arrest
Park said she wants to keep sketching people. She’ll accept photos at worldsworstsketch@gmail.com. All she needs is five minutes, a black ink pen, and a front and side shot of a person.
Anthony Hopkins on Happiness
Anthony Hopkins: Oh, I don't know. Just a sense of contentment. I'm not jumping up down all the time, but I just mosey through the day and do my painting and play piano. And I get peace when I read.
Anthony Hopkins: To me, it’s just being content with what’s right now. It’s a complete mystery, life. I don’t understand it. To quote Socrates, “I know nothing.” I really know nothing. And that’s to me happiness: to acknowledge that I know nothing. I’m insignificant. It’s all meaningless to me. And it’s a bit of fun to have a little bit of acclaim and be successful or achieve things—it’s fine. And I’m sure that if I do something else, get another job, and I do that okay, I’ll think, “Oh, good.” But finally, at the end of it all, as Mel Blanc said, “That’s all, folks!” [laughs] I don’t know what my epitaph will be. Probably something like “What the hell was that all about?”
Anthony Hopkins: I like having a cup of tea with my wife. Maybe a couple of cookies or something like that. I play the piano a lot. I paint. I play with my cat, Niblo.
Anthony Hopkins: I was in England making this film with Olivia Colman called The Father—I think that was probably the most exhilarating time I’ve had. It was a painful subject, about dementia, but they were such great people to work with. I said to Olivia one day, “Do they actually pay us to do this?” It’s a lot of fun. And yeah, if people want to take it very seriously and intensely, that’s up to them. But I’ve done all that in the past, and I think, “No, I’ll just relax.” I have learned a few tricks on the way—you know, I’m experienced in my business—all I try to spread around me is a bit of peace and respect for people’s other work, and be generous, be kind.
Anthony Hopkins: You know, years ago, I used to hang around with a lot of drinkers, like I was myself, be a complete pain in the ass to everyone. Because it’s creative, you know, it’s a badge of honor. I thought, “If I stop doing this, I won’t be able to create anymore.” Of course, it’s the biggest nonsense of all. The biggest con trick of all. Most of my friends from those days are dead now.
Anthony Hopkins: What makes me really happy is—what makes me free, I think is the best word to use—is the feeling that nothing is of that much importance. We’re pretty insignificant little dots in our vast universe. I have a saying for myself: Nothing to win, nothing to prove, nothing to win, nothing to lose, no sweat, no big deal.
Lev Taylor
"In Jewish tradition, all trees have the same birthday. That day is today. So if you see a tree today, wish them happy birthday from me."
Lev Taylor
Jennifer Boylan's book DOG DAYS
A great memoir provides a path forward for the reader as well as the writer, and Good Boy does just that. As Boylan discovers who she is through her dogs and her stories, her writing brings us back to ourselves, too.
When Boylan asks, “What is this world? What is this life?,” her dogs provided the answer. When Boylan was incapable of searching for her true self any longer, the dogs reminded her that she was not lost.
“Everything I learned about love I learned from dogs.”Boylan’s dogs dutifully lead her back to her best self, a self she describes as canine in nature. “But I have been drawn to dogs above all, perhaps because my own personality is fundamentally canine. I am happiest when I am with those whom I love, preferably by a warm fire. If you lost something, I would try to bring it back to you.”
You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down
“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”― Toni Morrison“Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved“You think because he doesn't love you that you are worthless. You think that because he doesn't want you anymore that he is right -- that his judgement and opinion of you are correct. If he throws you out, then you are garbage. You think he belongs to you because you want to belong to him. Don't. It's a bad word, 'belong.' Especially when you put it with somebody you love. Love shouldn't be like that. Did you ever see the way the clouds love a mountain? They circle all around it; sometimes you can't even see the mountain for the clouds. But you know what? You go up top and what do you see? His head. The clouds never cover the head. His head pokes through, because the clouds let him; they don't wrap him up. They let him keep his head up high, free, with nothing to hide him or bind him. You can't own a human being. You can't lose what you don't own. Suppose you did own him. Could you really love somebody who was absolutely nobody without you? You really want somebody like that? Somebody who falls apart when you walk out the door? You don't, do you? And neither does he. You're turning over your whole life to him. Your whole life, girl. And if it means so little to you that you can just give it away, hand it to him, then why should it mean any more to him? He can't value you more than you value yourself.”
― Toni Morrison“Make up a story... For our sake and yours forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. Don't tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief's wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear's caul.”
― Toni Morrison, The Nobel Lecture In Literature, 1993“At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint, or even remember it. It is enough.”
― Toni Morrison“She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved“Sweet, crazy conversations full of half sentences, daydreams and misunderstandings more thrilling than understanding could ever be.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved“Don't ever think I fell for you, or fell over you. I didn't fall in love, I rose in it.”
― Toni Morrison, Jazz“Anger ... it's a paralyzing emotion ... you can't get anything done. People sort of think it's an interesting, passionate, and igniting feeling — I don't think it's any of that — it's helpless ... it's absence of control — and I need all of my skills, all of the control, all of my powers ... and anger doesn't provide any of that — I have no use for it whatsoever."
[Interview with CBS radio host Don Swaim, September 15, 1987.]”
― Toni Morrison“I tell my students, 'When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a grab-bag candy game.”
― Toni Morrison“And I am all the things I have ever loved: scuppernong wine, cool baptisms in silent water, dream books and number playing.”
― Toni Morrison“In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.”
― Toni Morrison“You can't own a human being. You can't lose what you don't own. Suppose you did own him. Could you really love somebody who was absolutely nobody without you? You really want somebody like that? Somebody who falls apart when you walk out the door? You don't, do you? And neither does he. You're turning over your whole life to him. Your whole life, girl. And if it means so little to you that you can just give it away, hand it to him, then why should it mean any more to him? He can't value you more than you value yourself.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon“Let me tell you about love, that silly word you believe is about whether you like somebody or whether somebody likes you or whether you can put up with somebody in order to get something or someplace you want or you believe it has to do with how your body responds to another body like robins or bison or maybe you believe love is how forces or nature or luck is benign to you in particular not maiming or killing you but if so doing it for your own good. Love is none of that. There is nothing in nature like it. Not in robins or bison or in the banging tails of your hunting dogs and not in blossoms or suckling foal. Love is divine only and difficult always. If you think it is easy you are a fool. If you think it is natural you are blind. It is a learned application without reason or motive except that it is God. You do not deserve love regardless of the suffering you have endured. You do not deserve love because somebody did you wrong. You do not deserve love just because you want it. You can only earn - by practice and careful contemplations - the right to express it and you have to learn how to accept it. Which is to say you have to earn God. You have to practice God. You have to think God-carefully. And if you are a good and diligent student you may secure the right to show love. Love is not a gift. It is a diploma. A diploma conferring certain privileges: the privilege of expressing love and the privilege of receiving it. How do you know you have graduated? You don't. What you do know is that you are human and therefore educable, and therefore capable of learning how to learn, and therefore interesting to God, who is interested only in Himself which is to say He is interested only in love. Do you understand me? God is not interested in you. He is interested in love and the bliss it brings to those who understand and share the interest. Couples that enter the sacrament of marriage and are not prepared to go the distance or are not willing to get right with the real love of God cannot thrive. They may cleave together like robins or gulls or anything else that mates for life. But if they eschew this mighty course, at the moment when all are judged for the disposition of their eternal lives, their cleaving won't mean a thing. God bless the pure and holy. Amen.”
― Toni Morrison, Paradise“She was the third beer. Not the first one, which the throat receives with almost tearful gratitude; nor the second, that confirms and extends the pleasure of the first. But the third, the one you drink because it's there, because it can't hurt, and because what difference does it make?”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon“There is a loneliness that can be rocked. Arms crossed, knees drawn up, holding, holding on, this motion, unlike a ship's, smooths and contains the rocker. It's an inside kind--wrapped tight like skin. Then there is the loneliness that roams. No rocking can hold it down. It is alive. On its own. A dry and spreading thing that makes the sound of one's own feet going seem to come from a far-off place.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved“Lonely, ain't it?
Yes, but my lonely is mine. Now your lonely is somebody else's. Made by somebody else and handed to you. Ain't that something? A secondhand lonely.”
― Toni Morrison, Sula“Love is never any better than the lover. Wicked people love wickedly, violent people love violently, weak people love weakly, stupid people love stupidly, but the love of a free man is never safe. There is no gift for the beloved. The lover alone possesses his gift of love. The loved one is shorn, neutralized, frozen in the glare of the lover’s inward eye.”
― Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye“What difference do it make if the thing you scared of is real or not?”
― Toni Morrison“Along with the idea of romantic love, she was introduced to another--physical beauty. Probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought. Both originated in envy, thrived in insecurity, and ended in disillusion.”
― Toni Morrison“The function of freedom is to free someone else.”
― Toni Morrison“Me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved“I never asked Tolstoy to write for me, a little colored girl in Lorain, Ohio. I never asked [James] Joyce not to mention Catholicism or the world of Dublin. Never. And I don't know why I should be asked to explain your life to you. We have splendid writers to do that, but I am not one of them. It is that business of being universal, a word hopelessly stripped of meaning for me. Faulkner wrote what I suppose could be called regional literature and had it published all over the world. That's what I wish to do. If I tried to write a universal novel, it would be water. Behind this question is the suggestion that to write for black people is somehow to diminish the writing. From my perspective there are only black people. When I say 'people,' that's what I mean.”
― Toni Morrison
Don McCullin
"I left school at the age of fifteen, couldn’t read and write properly, suffered terribly from dyslexia, which got me a lot of hidings from schoolmasters. I have a problem with words and yet I have an amazing pair of eyes."
Don McCullin
Don McCullin
British photojournalistSir Donald McCullin CBE is a British photojournalist, particularly recognised for his war photography and images of urban strife. His career, which began in 1959, has specialised in examining the underside of society, and his photographs have depicted the unemployed, downtrodden and the impoverished. WikipediaBorn: October 9, 1935 (age 85 years), Finsbury Park, London, United KingdomChildren: 5
Good Bones
By Maggie Smith
Life is short, though I keep this from my children.Life is short, and I’ve shortened minein a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,a thousand deliciously ill-advised waysI’ll keep from my children. The world is at leastfifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservativeestimate, though I keep this from my children.For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,sunk in a lake. Life is short and the worldis at least half terrible, and for every kindstranger, there is one who would break you,though I keep this from my children. I am tryingto sell them the world. Any decent realtor,walking you through a real shithole, chirps onabout good bones: This place could be beautiful,right? You could make this place beautiful.
Maggie Smith, "Good Bones" from Waxwing.Copyright © 2016 by Maggie Smith.Reprinted by permission of Waxwing magazine
Wednesday, January 27, 2021
The Mirror
There is no nobler chore in the universe than holding up the mirror of reality and turning it slightly, so we have a new and different perception of the commonplace, the everyday, the “normal,” the obvious. People are reflected in the glass. The fantasy situation into which you thrust them is the mirror itself. And what we are shown should illuminate and alter our perception of the world around us. Failing that, you have failed totally.
HARLAN ELLISON
Collective Fear
“Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.”
― Bertrand Russell, Unpopular Essays
We know very little
“We know very little, and yet it is astonishing that we know so much, and still more astonishing that so little knowledge can give us so much power.”
― Bertrand Russell
if you want to teach them to think
“When you want to teach children to think, you begin by treating them seriously when they are little, giving them responsibilities, talking to them candidly, providing privacy and solitude for them, and making them readers and thinkers of significant thoughts from the beginning. That’s if you want to teach them to think.”
― Bertrand Russell
Companionship
“Those who have never known the deep intimacy and the intense companionship of happy mutual love have missed the best thing that life has to give.”
― Bertrand Russell
Men Fear Thought
“Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid ... Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.”
― Bertrand Russell, Why Men Fight
Without Certainty
“To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who study it.”
― Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy
Fear Love
“To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already 3-parts dead.”
― Bertrand Russell
Bridge
“The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn.”
― Bertrand Russell
Fear
“Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.”
― Bertrand Russell, Unpopular Essays
Delusions
“One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness
Bertrand Russell
“Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature made them.”
― Bertrand Russell, New Hopes for a Changing World
Essays
“I do not pretend to be able to prove that there is no God. I equally cannot prove that Satan is a fiction. The Christian god may exist; so may the gods of Olympus, or of ancient Egypt, or of Babylon. But no one of these hypotheses is more probable than any other: they lie outside the region of even probable knowledge, and therefore there is no reason to consider any of them.”
― Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects
Question Mark
“In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.”
― Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
“And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence”
― Bertrand Russell
Does the Gop Have Stockholm Syndrome?
Episodes of what is known as Stockholm syndrome have likely occurred for many decades, even centuries. But it wasn’t until 1973 that this response to entrapment or abuse came to be named.
That’s when two men held four people hostage for 6 days after a bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden. After the hostages were released, they refused to testify against their captors and even began raising money for their defense.
After that, psychologists and mental health experts assigned the term “Stockholm syndrome” to the condition that occurs when hostages develop an emotional or psychological connection to the people who held them in captivity.
Despite being well known, however, Stockholm syndrome is not recognized by the new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. This manual is used by mental health experts and other specialists to diagnose mental health disorders.
Health is Wealth
Nicole Tella, MS, RD, LDN“Pandemic weight gain” is real and for good reason. In these days of coronavirus, we are experiencing unparalleled stress coupled with social isolation and easy access to our refrigerators and cabinets. This is a recipe for weight gain.
Fortunately, there are easy ways to avoid packing on those pandemic pounds. It’s important to create a home environment that supports your health goals.
Make healthy meals and snacks easily accessible. Keep less healthy foods out of sight or even out of the home. To make healthy foods visible and easy to grab:
- cut up fruits and veggies and store in clear containers
- pre-pack snack size bags or small containers with whole grain crackers, tortilla chips or nuts to avoid mindlessly eating out of packages
- create a snack drawer in the fridge with Greek yogurt, pre-measured or single serve hummus or guacamole, hard boiled eggs, cheese sticks and prepped produce
- make a soup or stew on Sunday for quick lunches or dinner
- prep salad fixings ahead of time including veggies, protein and dressing for a quick meal
Cicely Tyson
When did you decide that acting was your calling? What was the thing that made you say, "This is what I have to do"?
Well, it happened because I learned that I could speak through other people. I was a very shy child. I was an observer. I would sit and observe and listen and watch people's actions in order to understand what they were. I wanted to know what prompted them to say and do the things that they did. I sucked my fingers for 12 years. I never spoke ... but I was a great observer.
Do you have some advice for younger artists or those just beginning their careers after you've done so much and seen so much and been through so much? Do you have any advice that you would share?
Well, I don't feel like I am one to give advice, except to say, you know, my mother did not want me to be an actress and she said I could not live in her house and do that. But in my gut, I knew there was something there that I was put here to do. And she didn't speak to me for a couple of years.
And although I lived long enough and she lived long enough to see that I was not going to live in a den of iniquity and that I would not forget the teaching that she gave me in my early years. And finally she came around and I was able to hear her say, "I am so proud of you" and see that I was not going to forget my beginnings.
And so your advice would be what? Just stick with it?
Just stick with it. Just stick with it. There's always a reason why you keep going in the direction you chose to go in.
Carolyn See
Sneak up on your material. Don’t go crashing after it through the forest with a machete. Sit down, be quiet, let the material catch up with you.
CAROLYN SEE
Kiese Laymon
“I’m not interested in being the only one of me in any room. I bring my people with me wherever I go.”
Kiese Laymon
Naval Ravikant
Too much sugar leads to a heavy body, and too many distractions lead to a heavy mind.
Naval Ravikant
Tony Hsieh
“Chase the vision, not the money, the money will end up following you.”
- Tony Hsieh, founder of Zappos.