Sweeping the Front Porch

I wanted a house so I had something to take care of. I am reminded of this as I sweep my front porch and continue onto the sidewalks sweeping the plant debris into the gutter. Now the rain is washing it all away.

Iyanla Vanzant

What you are being challenged by may be the very thing you've been waiting for. 

Iyanla Vanzant

The Code of Chew

https://www.americastestkitchen.com/recipes/1144-thick-and-chewy-chocolate-chip-cookies

https://www.bobsredmill.com/blog/baking-101/how-to-make-chewy-cookies/

          ATK said: add an extra egg yolk! 

ATK HERMITS https://apnews.com/article/68e6d86c5f1840e8a3aae1afa73d688b

The Pencil

 A single pencil can draw a line 35 miles long, or write around 45,000 words.

The Writer's Almanac

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

What you Believe

 “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

Smarter While you are Writing

 “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

Re-Read

“Lists of books we re-read and books we can't finish tell more about us than about the relative worth of the books themselves”

― Russell Banks

Mario Vargas Llosa's Birthday

“Almost seventy years later I remember clearly how the magic of translating the words in books into images enriched my life, breaking the barriers of time and space...”
― Mario Vargas Llosa

“One can't fight with oneself, for this battle has only one loser.”
― Mario Vargas Llosa, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter

“Memory is a snare, pure and simple; it alters, it subtly rearranges the past to fit the present.”
― Mario Vargas Llosa

“Writers are the exorcists of their own demons.”
― Mario Vargas-Llosa

“We would be worse than we are without the good books we have read, more conformist, not as restless, more submissive, and the critical spirit, the engine of progress, would not even exist. Like writing, reading is a protest against the insufficiencies of life. When we look in fiction for what is missing in life, we are saying, with no need to say it or even to know it, that life as it is does not satisfy our thirst for the absolute – the foundation of the human condition – and should be better. We invent fictions in order to live somehow the many lives we would like to lead when we barely have one at our disposal.”
― Mario Vargas Llosa

“Its easy to know what you want to say, but not to say it”
― Mario Vargas Llosa

“I convinced her that her first loyalty isn't to other people, but to her own feelings.”
― Mario Vargas Llosa, Travesuras de la niña mala

“In my case, literature is a kind of revenge. It's something that gives me what real life can't give me - all the adventures, all the suffering. All the experiences I can only live in the imagination, literature completes.”
― Mario Vargas Llosa

“Life is a shitstorm, in which art is our only umbrella."
(spoken by character in a novel by Mario Vargas Llosa)”
― Mario Vargas Llosa

“But what do I have? The things I'm told and the things I tell, that's all. And as far as I know, that never yet made anyone fly.”
― Mario Vargas Llosa, The Storyteller

“The secret to happiness, at least to peace of mind, is knowing how to separate sex from love. And, if possible, eliminating romantic love from your life, which is the love that makes you suffer. That way, I assure you, you live with greater tranquility and enjoy things more.”
― Mario Vargas Llosa, Travesuras de la niña mala

“Well, at heart I knew she'd never be a normal woman. And I didn't want her to be one, because what I loved in her were the indomitable and unpredictable aspects of her personality”
― Mario Vargas Llosa, Travesuras de la niña mala

“You cannot teach creativity—how to become a good writer. But you can help a young writer discover within himself what kind of writer he would like to be.” Mario Vargas Llosa”
― Mario Vargas Llosa

“That is one thing I am sure of amid my many uncertainties regarding the literary vocation: deep inside, a writer feels that writing is the best thing that ever happened to him, or could ever happen to him, because as far as he is concerned, writing is the best possible way of life, never mind the social, political, or financial rewards of what he might achieve through it.”
― Mario Vargas Llosa, Letters to a Young Novelist

“The writer’s job is to write with rigor, with commitment, to defend what they believe with all the talent they have. I think that’s part of the moral obligation of a writer, which cannot be only purely artistic. I think a writer has some kind of responsibility at least to participate in the civic debate. I think literature is impoverished, if it becomes cut from the main agenda of people, of society, of life.”
― Mario Vargas Llosa

“No matter how ephemeral it is, a novel is something, while despair is nothing.”
― Mario Vargas Llosa

“Science is still only a candle glimmering in a great pitch-dark cavern.”
― Mario Vargas Llosa, The War of the End of the World

“From the cave to the skyscraper, from the club to weapons of mass destruction, from the tautological life of the tribe to the era of globalization, the fictions of literature have multiplied human experiences, preventing us from succumbing to lethargy, self-absorption, resignation. Nothing has sown so much disquiet, so disturbed our imagination and our desires as the life of lies we add, thanks to literature, to the one we have, so we can be protagonists in the great adventures, the great passions real life will never give us. The lies of literature become truths through us, the readers transformed, infected with longings and, through the fault of fiction, permanently questioning a mediocre reality. Sorcery, when literature offers us the hope of having what we do not have, being what we are not, acceding to that impossible existence where like pagan gods we feel mortal and eternal at the same time, that introduces into our spirits non-conformity and rebellion, which are behind all the heroic deeds that have contributed to the reduction of violence in human relationships. Reducing violence, not ending it. Because ours will always be, fortunately, an unfinished story. That is why we have to continue dreaming, reading, and writing, the most effective way we have found to alleviate our mortal condition, to defeat the corrosion of time, and to transform the impossible into possibility.”
― Mario Vargas Llosa

“Revolution will free society of its afflictions, while science will free the individual of his.”
― Mario Vargas Llosa, The War of the End of the World

“Why would anyone who is deeply satisfied with reality, with real life as it is lived, dedicate himself to something as insubstantial and fanciful as the creation of fictional realities? Naturally, those who rebel against lie as it is, using their ability to invent different lives and different people, may do so for any number of reasons, honorable or dishonorable, generous or selfish, complex or banal. The nature of this basic questioning of reality, which to my mind lies at the heart of every literary calling, doesn't matter at all. What matters is that the rejection be strong enough to fuel the enthusiasm for a task as quixotic as tilting at windmills – the slight-of-hand replacement of the concrete, objective world of life as it is lived with the subtle and ephemeral world of fiction.”

― Mario Vargas Llosa, Letters to a Young Novelist

“I always write a draft version of the novel in which I try to develop, not the story, not the plot, but the possibilities of the plot. I write without thinking much, trying to overcome all kinds of self-criticism, without stopping, without giving any consideration to the style or structure of the novel, only putting down on paper everything that can be used as raw material, very crude material for later development in the story.”
― Mario Vargas Llosa

“‎Reading good literature is an experience of pleasure...but it is also an experience of learning what and how we are, in our human integrity and our human imperfection, with our actions, our dreams, and our ghosts, alone and in relationships that link us to others, in our public image and in the secret recesses of our consciousness.”
― Mario Vargas Llosa

“Death isn't enough. It doesn't remove the stain. But a slap, a whiplash, square on the face, does. Because a man's face is as sacred as his mother or his wife.”
― Mario Vargas Llosa, The War of the End of the World

Mario Vargas Llosa

Everyone is in a rush in New York, even in restaurants and in cafes. You don't have the serenity. That, I think, is very important in order to read.

Mario Vargas Llosa

Paul Theroux

“It’s more necessary than ever to find the empathetic experience of meeting another person, being in another culture, to smell it, to suffer it, to put up with the hardship and the nuisances of travel, all of that matters,” Theroux said. He quoted the Nobel Prize-winning author V.S. Naipaul, who at various moments in Theroux’s writing career was a mentor and a nemesis: “I believe that the present, accurately seized, foretells the future.”

And Theroux agrees. “You don’t have to make forecasts,” he said. “You just write about the things that you see, the things that you hear, the things that you sense, and when you write that, you’re a prophet.” Article

My Yard

My neighbor was picking up trash. I joined in and decided to pick up all of the wind blown garbage in my yard. I found a huge plastic bag in with the trash so it was an easy decision. Most of the debris is candy wrappers and empty water bottles that get blown through the gap below the chain link fence next door. I did find a spent coconut with a hole drilled in it and a packet of weather worn marijuana labeled medical use only. The kids like to hang out in the alley and toss stuff in my bushes. In the past I found a glass pipe. I cleaned it and am saving it for Judy who has been smoking pot for 40 years. There are daffodils coming up and the forsythia is about to bloom. I stepped into the groundhog hole like I do every year.

The Man

He parked and got out waving his hands and dancing to music playing on his car stereo. He rummaged through the car tossing paper bags into the back seat and then got out and opened his trunk and stood there looking in his wallet. He had a puppy with him that jumped out and promptly bent over and pooped in the center of the parking lot. The man scooped the puppy poop with a paper bag and left it against the garage. Then he reached into his car and pulled out an open bottle of champagne and took swigs of it. He grabbed the champagne, a gym bag and a shopping bag and the puppy followed. They disappeared into the alley.

Home Guillotine Kit

 Where's my home guillotine kit? I need to chop off my head.

The Wind

 The wind is shaking the naked trees.

The Worm Moon

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/1771/the-next-full-moon-is-the-worm-moon-and-by-some-definitions-a-supermoon/

Dream

I dreamed I was riding on the back of a cow and she was standing in the ocean. I wondered about other cows bumping into my leg. I wondered if this made me a cow-girl.

Harry Truman

"It is amazing how much you can accomplish when it doesn't matter who gets the credit." 

-Harry Truman

Suicide Prevention

I don’t want us to lose any more children because we weren’t brave enough to take on something that scares us, something we don’t fully understand, something that is much more prevalent than many of us realize. Article

Solvitur Ambulando

Solvitur ambulando is my favorite Latin phrase. It means "it is solved by walking".

Sammy Cat

Sammy had an anxiety attack after I cut his nails and tried for the other paw. He started panting --mouth wide open and drooling. I thought he was dying. I googled on PetMD CAT PANTING DROOLING. Yes, ANXIETY ATTACK. Next time I'll not try to do this alone. He's fine now. Wow! I feel terrible but relieved that he's okay.

Plastic Pollution Pandemic

We have to stop talking about plastic pollution as if it were confined to our oceans and start talking about global plastic pollution harming life everywhere. We have a plastic pollution pandemic from the tops of mountains to the bottom of the sea. A limited view limits our ability to solve the problem. Article

Sharing Food

Sharing food has always had a central place in civilized societies; it's no accident that so many of our cultural, religious and patriotic rituals are involved with eating.

Ruth Reichl

Ruth Reichl

The way we allow children to be advertised to is shocking. Eating is a learned behavior, and we've made these kids sitting ducks for all the bad messages about industrialized food. The fact that we allow that to go on is horrifying.

Ruth Reichl

Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

“I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun. I put them on and went out of the room.”
― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

Revision Prescription

“Throw up into your typewriter every morning. Clean up every noon.”

― Raymond Chandler

Not the Same Man

“A man who drinks too much on occasion is still the same man as he was sober. An alcoholic, a real alcoholic, is not the same man at all. You can't predict anything about him for sure except that he will be someone you never met before.”
― Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

Season of Noise

I had to dodge crazy ranting men on my dog walk, two times on one walk. I had gone out to avoid the BLARING music in the apartment house behind me. Now I'm hearing a leaf blower. There are no leaves. It's being used to blow winter remnants of sand into the street. The season of NOISE has begun and I am FURIOUS about it.

Rebecca Solnit

Stories are compasses and architecture; we navigate by them, we build our sanctuaries and our prisons out of them, and to be without a story is to be lost in the vastness of a world that spreads in all directions like arctic tundra or sea ice. To love someone is to put yourself in their story, or figure out how to tell yourself their story.

REBECCA SOLNIT

Dream

 I dreamed I was in a  huge space that had platforms jutting out as rooms with no walls, only floors. One false move and you fall off the edge, I thought.

Architectural Dominance

I hate it when guys in the neighborhood try to converse from a porch 2&3 stories above me while I'm walking my dog on the sidewalk below. I'll see these same people on the ground and they won't say a word. Only when they are above me will they try to display their dominance.

CHICKEN

I buy the six-pack of skinless, boneless chicken breasts on sale and then place each breast in a small ziploc bag in the freezer. Then, 2 minutes before I'm prepping dinner I plunk one in a bucket for 2 minutes just long enough to get the bag off and slice the chicken nice and thin which is best while frozen. THEN sautee the chicken slices in a big skillet and add peanut butter, soy sauce, olive oil, sesame oil, sriracha, and add this to you favorite rice and stir fried vegetables. So good!

Adam Zagajewski

“But I was only a chaotic walker, nobody could stop me; even a totalitarian state was not able to control my daydreams, my poetic fascinations, the pattern of my walking.” 

― Adam Zagajewski

Frozen

Frozen chicken breasts sliced thin tossed in a pan with sriracha, soy sauce, peanut butter, olive oil, sesame oil, cooks fast. We then added dried cranberries and leftover seared broccoli. Yum!

Adam Zagajewski

“I drink from a small spring,
my thirst exceeds the ocean.”
― Adam Zagajewski, Without End: New and Selected Poems

Read

“Read for yourselves, read for the sake of your inspiration, for the sweet turmoil in your lovely head. But also read against yourselves, read for questioning and impotence, for despair and erudition, read the dry sardonic remarks of cynical philosophers like Cioran or even Carl Schmitt, read newspapers, read those who despise, dismiss or simply ignore poetry and try to understand why they do it. Read your enemies, read those who reinforce your sense of what's evolving in poetry, and also read those whose darkness or malice or madness or greatness you can't understand because only in this way will you grow, outlive yourself, and become what you are.”
― Adam Zagajewski, A Defense of Ardor: Essays

Sue Monk Kidd

“Some things don't matter much. Like the color of a house. How big is that in the overall scheme of life? But lifting a person's heart--now, that matters. The whole problem with people is...they know what matters, but they don't choose it...The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters.”

― Sue Monk Kidd

Kim Edwards

“This was her life. Not the life she had once dreamed of, not a life her younger self would ever have imagined or desired, but the life she was living, with all its complexities. This was her life, built with care and attention, and it was good.”

― Kim Edwards, The Memory Keeper's Daughter

 

“You can't spend the rest of your life tiptoeing around to try and avert disaster. It won't work. You'll just end up missing the life you have.”
― Kim Edwards, The Memory Keeper's Daughter

Ayomide Ofulue

 Ayomide’s advice for you is “just keep going.”

James Lee Jobe

 Let me live content without a lot of money. Let me be a tool to help replenish the earth and heal its wounds. Let me share of myself whenever there is need without seeking applause or reward. And let me embrace you in friendship with open arms. This I do pray.

           -jobe

Janet Frame

 “And I’m going to put three dots with my typewriter, impressively, and then I’m going to begin...” 

--Janet Frame, “My Last Story”

Eviction

Friday I heard the big truck and saw it pull up against the building. Bags of clothes and furniture were tossed into the truck bed from the 2nd floor window. This went on for a few loads. 

 I had seen a masked man ask the tenant to sign papers on the hood of his car a week ago perhaps it was an eviction notice.

 Yesterday I spotted groceries in doubled bags on the ground under the window. I realized the clean up guys didn't have the heart to throw out the bottled water and boxes of food. The poor woman might want to come back for it. We can't throw away food.

Spring

Ice cream truck driving down the street warped by time space relativity!

Routine vs Ritual

"The difference between a routine and a ritual is the attitude behind the action. While routines can be actions that just need to be done—such as making your bed or taking a shower—rituals are viewed as more meaningful practices which have a real sense of purpose. Rituals do not have to be spiritual or religious." source

Honoré de Balzac

“Solitude is fine but you need someone to tell that solitude is fine.”
― Honoré de Balzac

“Reading brings us unknown friends”
― Honore de Balzac

“The more one judges, the less one loves.”
― Honoré de Balzac, Physiologie Du Mariage

“All happiness depends on courage and work.”
― Honoré de Balzac

“Laws are spider webs through which the big flies pass and the little ones get caught.”
― Honore de Balzac

“It is always assumed by the empty-headed, who chatter about themselves for want of something better, that people who do not discuss their affairs openly must have something to hide.”
― Honoré de Balzac, Père Goriot

“Women are always true, even in the midst of their greatest falsities, because they are always influenced by some natural feeling.”
― Honoré de Balzac, Père Goriot

“Some day you will find out that there is far more happiness in another's happiness than in your own.”
― Honoré de Balzac, Père Goriot

“Every moment of happiness requires a great amount of Ignorance”
― Honoré de Balzac

“Behind every great fortune there is a crime.”
― Honoré de Balzac

“Our greatest fears lie in anticipation.”
― Balzac

“Marriage must fight constantly against a monster which devours everything: routine.”
― Honore de Balzac

“It is absurd to pretend that one cannot love the same woman always, as to pretend that a good artist needs several violins to execute a piece of music.”
― Honore de Balzac

“The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness”
― Honore de Balzac

“for a woman knows the face of the man she loves like a sailor knows the open sea”
― Honore de Balzac

“I am not deep, but I am very wide.”
― Balzac

“There is no such thing as a great talent without great willpower.”
― Honoré de Balzac

“Ah! What pleasure it must be to a woman to suffer for the one she loves!”
― Honoré de Balzac, Père Goriot

“I'm a great poet. I don't put my poems on paper: they consist of actions and feelings.”
― Honoré de Balzac, Père Goriot

“Nothing so fortifies a friendship as a belief on the part of one friend that he is superior to the other.”
― Honore de Balzac

“A letter is a soul, so faithful an echo of the speaking voice that to the sensitive it is among the richest treasures of love.”
― Honoré de Balzac, Père Goriot

“Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact.”
― Honore de Balzac

“Who is to decide which is the grimmer sight: withered hearts, or empty skulls?”
― Honoré de Balzac, Père Goriot

“True love is eternal, infinite and always like itself. It's always equal and pure. Without violent demonstrations: It is seen with white hairs and is always young at heart.”
― Honore de Balzac

“This coffee falls into your stomach, and straightway there is a general commotion. Ideas begin to move like the battalions of the Grand Army on the battlefield, and the battle takes place. Things remembered arrive at full gallop, ensign to the wind. The light cavalry of comparisons deliver a magnificent deploying charge, the artillery of logic hurry up with their train and ammunition, the shafts of wit start up like sharpshooters. Similes arise, the paper is covered with ink; for the struggle commences and is concluded with torrents of black water, just as a battle with powder.”
― Honoré de Balzac

“Passion is born deaf and dumb.”
― Honore de Balzac

“An unfulfilled vocation drains the color from a man's entire existence.”
― Honore de Balzac

“Perhaps it is only human nature to inflict suffering on anything that will endure suffering, whether by reason of its genuine humility, or indifference, or sheer helplessness.”
― Honoré de Balzac, Père Goriot

“Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true.”
― Honoré de Balzac

“However gross a man may be, the minute he expresses a strong and genuine affection, some inner secretion alters his features, animates his gestures, and colors his voice. The stupidest man will often, under the stress of passion, achieve heights of eloquence, in thought if not in language, and seem to move in some luminous sphere. Goriot's voice and gesture had at this moment the power of communication that characterizes the great actor. Are not our finer feelings the poems of the human will?”
― Honoré de Balzac, Père Goriot

Dylan on Balzac

 “Balzac was pretty funny. His philosophy is plain and simple, says basically that pure materialism is a recipe for madness. The only true knowledge for Balzac seems to be in superstition. Everything is subject to analysis. Horde your energy. That’s the secret of life. You can learn a lot from Mr. B. It’s funny to have him as a companion. He wears a monk’s robe and drinks endless cups of coffee. Too much sleep clogs up his mind. One of his teeth falls out, and he says, “What does this mean?” He questions everything. His clothes catch fire on a candle. He wonders if fire is a good sign. Balzac is hilarious.”
― Bob Dylan, Chronicles: Volume One

True

“If you try to be anyone but yourself, you will fail; if you are not true to your own heart, you will fail. Then again, there's no success like failure”

― Bob Dylan

Trapeze

“You don't necessarily have to write to be a poet. Some people work in gas stations and they're poets. I don't call myself a poet, because I don't like the word. I'm a trapeze artist.”

― Bob Dylan

No Time

 Article

Dream

I just remembered my dream. I was telling a friend to rent a bicycle and spend the day riding around Block Island.

My Life with a Silent Movie Soundtrack

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQJUQEf4xQA

Baking

 Enjoying sunshine on the first day of Spring. Amen to allergy meds. I thought I could skip a day and I was dead wrong.

 Baking molasses granola. The house smells good.

Break off

  “Blessed are those
who break off from separateness

theirs is wild
heaven.”
― Jean Valentine, Little Boat 

Contrast

 Most days I start off like a turtle swimming off his rock. Saturday is blissful for the contrast.

Don't listen to the words—

 “Don't listen to the words—
they're only little shapes for what you're saying,
they're only cups if you're thirsty, you aren't thirsty.”
― Jean Valentine, Break the Glass

Jean Valentine

“Never ran this hard through the valley
never ate so many stars

I was carrying a dead deer
tied on to my neck and shoulders

deer legs hanging in front of me
heavy on my chest

People are not wanting
to let me in

Door in the mountain
let me in”
― Jean Valentine, Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965-2003

Marc Perrone

 We all play Marc Perrone

We All Play Marc Perrone

Compagnie Macke-Bornauw

March 18 at 11:25 AM ·

65 diatonic accordion players play Marc Perrone's Music

Video & Music Editing made by Benjamin Macke

With :

Youen Bodros
Anne Niepold
Martin Coudroy
Claudio Fiabane
Laerte Scotti
Jean-Pierre Yvert
Markku Lepistö
Benjamin Macke
Alessandro d'Alessandro
Antonella Costanzo (voice)
Alessandro D’Alessandro
Silvia Di Bello
Gianfranco Onairda
Matteo Mattoni
Angelo Di Bello
Matteo Di Prospero
Alain Pennec
Simon Gielen
Ambrogio Sparagna
Raffaele Mallozzi
Mario Salvi
Marinette Bonnert
Jean-Michel Corgeron
Remco Sietsema
Alessandro Pipino
Andrea Capezzuoli
Laurent Geoffroy
Andy Cutting
Sophie Petkevich
Christophe Raillard
Valerio Cairone
Riccardo Tesi
Simone Bottasso
David Munelly
Pere Romani
Marcello Alajmo
Bruno Le Tron
Anne Rivaud
Yann-Fañch Perroches
Christian Oller
Jean-Marie Jagueneau
Filippo Gambetta
Gianfranco Rongo
Claudio Prima
Alessandro Parente
Carlo Parente
Anna Parente
Michele Parente
Antonella Parente
Domenico Parente
Dalila Parente
Alisia Parente
Ludovica Staiano
Philippe Plard
Wim Claeys
Pablo Golder
Thierry Pinson
Maider Martineau
Sylvain Butté
Didier Laloy
Toon van Mierlo
Pascale Rubens (voice)
Eva Parmenter
Roberto Tombesi (voice)
Laure Chailloux
Madana Marco Rufo

Poet Niall M. Oliver

https://burninghousepress.com/2019/07/27/before-sunday-dinner-a-poem-by-niall-m-oliver/

https://dodgingtherain.wordpress.com/2020/05/20/niall-m-oliver-the-sky-would-surrender-to-the-sea/

Sweet Corn

https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30403858

Warsan Shire

“My alone feels so good, I'll only have you if you're sweeter than my solitude.”

― Warsan Shire

Socrates: “I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think”

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
― Socrates

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
― Socrates

“I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think”
― Socrates

“There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.”
― Socrates

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
― Socrates

“Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.”
― Socrates

“Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.”
― Socrates

“To find yourself, think for yourself.”
― Socrates

“Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.”
― Socrates

“By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.”
― Socrates

“He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.”
― Socrates

“Be slow to fall into friendship, but when you are in, continue firm and constant.”
― Socrates

“If you don't get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don't want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can't hold on to it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is law and no amount of pretending will alter that reality.”
― Socrates

“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”
― Socrates

“Sometimes you put walls up not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.”
― Socrates

“No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.”
― Socrates

“The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.”
― Socrates

“Know thyself.”
― Socrates

“Let him who would move the world first move himself.”
― Socrates

“Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.”
― Socrates

“Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.”
― Socrates, Essential Thinkers - Socrates

“Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for.”
― Socrates

“The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.”
― Socrates

“The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our separate ways, I to die, and you to live. Which of these two is better only God knows.”
― Socrates

“Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others.”
― Socrates

“I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world."

[As quoted in Plutarch's Of Banishment]”
― Socrates

“I examined the poets, and I look on them as people whose talent overawes both themselves and others, people who present themselves as wise men and are taken as such, when they are nothing of the sort.

From poets, I moved to artists. No one was more ignorant about the arts than I; no one was more convinced that artists possessed really beautiful secrets. However, I noticed that their condition was no better than that of the poets and that both of them have the same misconceptions. Because the most skillful among them excel in their specialty, they look upon themselves as the wisest of men. In my eyes, this presumption completely tarnished their knowledge. As a result, putting myself in the place of the oracle and asking myself what I would prefer to be — what I was or what they were, to know what they have learned or to know that I know nothing — I replied to myself and to the god: I wish to remain who I am.

We do not know — neither the sophists, nor the orators, nor the artists, nor I— what the True, the Good, and the Beautiful are. But there is this difference between us: although these people know nothing, they all believe they know something; whereas, I, if I know nothing, at least have no doubts about it. As a result, all this superiority in wisdom which the oracle has attributed to me reduces itself to the single point that I am strongly convinced that I am ignorant of what I do not know.”
― Socrates

“Every action has its pleasures and its price.”
― Socrates

“Prefer knowledge to wealth, for the one is transitory, the other perpetual.”
― Socrates

“We cannot live better than in seeking to become better.”
― Socrates

Socrates

 Pride divides the men, humility joins them.

 Socrates

Rockettes

 

Trip to Mars

 

Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman

What is gaslighting precisely? It takes its name from a play and then a 1944 movie called Gaslight starring Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman. In it, Boyer manipulates Bergman and distracts her from his criminality by trying to convince her that she is going insane. And that’s what gaslighters do: They make the target believe that his or her grip on reality is tenuous at best and non-existent at worst. The most common tactics are insisting that something that happened didn’t, dismissing a claim by saying it was simply imagined, or telling the person flat out that she or he is losing it or crazy. Gaslighters exploit their target’s fears, insecurities, vulnerabilities, and neediness to their own ends. source

Zeynep Tufekci

"higher transmissibility, which makes it harder to hold the line with masking and distancing, renders distributing vaccines as soon as possible even more crucial. When facing an exponential threat like a more transmissible variant, a vaccine in arms today is much more valuable"

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/17/opinion/coronavirus-vaccine.html

Samuel Clemens AKA Mark Twain

Common sense: the ability to look at the earth and see that it is obviously flat.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream.

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.

The difference between the almost-right word and the right word is...the difference between the lightening bug and the lightening.

Elizabeth Kübler-Rosss.

 In 1969, a Swiss-American psychiatrist named Elizabeth Kübler-Ross wrote in her book “On Death and Dying” that grief could be divided into five stages. Her observations came from years of working with terminally ill individuals.

https://www.healthline.com/health/stages-of-grief

The five stages of grief are:

• denial
• anger
• bargaining
• depression
• acceptance

Ken Rutkowski

One day you will realize that material things mean nothing. All that matters is the well-being and happiness of the people you love in your life. 

Ken Rutkowski

Postcrossing

cairdin told me about this. https://www.postcrossing.com/about

3 Quotes

 

When we no longer have good cooking in the world, we will have no literature, nor high and sharp intelligence, nor friendly gatherings, no social harmony.

Marie-Antoine Carême

Success is the sum of a lot of small things done correctly. 

Fernand Point

Be well. Be kind. Bake.

 Jamie Schler

Brain Boosting Foods

 https://www.seek.com.au/learning/studying/study-tips/10-foods-to-boost-your-brain-power

10 foods to boost your brain power

Superfoods are great for your health and wellbeing, and can also boost your brain power to help you nail your study efforts. As you can imagine, some of the healthiest foods are the most effective, but not all brain foods are boring. In fact, some of your favourite foods and indulgent treats can help you hit the books!

1. Go Bananas

Bananas are a great source of potassium, manganese, vitamin C and fibre, but did you know they can also enhance memory? Studies show eating bananas help students learn more efficiently and improve exam scores. They also contain vitamin B6, which promotes the production of serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine to support concentration.

2. Blueberries, brainberries

Blueberries? These powerful little antioxidants are more like brainberries, since they protect the brain against oxidative stress, and also offer memory-boosting agents like anthocyanin and flavonoids to enhance spatial memory and learning.

3. Caffeine hit

Love any excuse to take a coffee break? Great news. Caffeine, in small doses, can energise you and help you concentrate. If you’re not a coffee drinker opt for green tea, which also contains the L-theanine amino acid to keep you energised and alert, minus the shakes.

4. Channel Popeye

Popeye was onto something – spinach is one of the healthiest greens around, and is jam-packed with antioxidants, iron, and minerals that improve concentration. The magnesium, folic acid and vitamin B12 found in spinach aid in the production of healthy red blood cells which carry oxygen to your brain and protect neurons.

5. Magic beans

Chickpeas, kidney beans, and lentils contain high levels of protein to power the brain. Legumes of all varieties contain high concentrations of folic acid to improve information recall.

6.  Dark Chocolate

Dark chocolate offers a double-whammy, with antioxidant properties to combat cognitive decline, as well as the natural stimulant of caffeine to enhance focus. Chocolate can help improve memory, alertness and clarity by increasing blood flow to the brain. Not all chocolate is created equal though – the darker it is, the more benefits your brain will receive.

7. Air Popcorn!!

Healthy whole grains like brown rice, whole grain bread, oatmeal and even popcorn contain fibres and vitamins that improve blood flow throughout the brain and help memory function. They also improve blood-sugar stability, which can curb study-interrupting cravings.

8. De-stress with seeds

If all that studying has got you on edge, munch on some sunflower seeds. These magic kernels give your body a dose of soothing tryptophan – an amino acid that helps reduce stress and anxiety.

9. Best of All... Cruciferous

Harvard Medical School has proven that cruciferous veggies like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and (sorry!) Brussels sprouts have a positive effect on memory retention. Eat them raw to get the most benefit.

10. Kale, the KING

Kale is heralded as a superfood for a number of reasons, including that it’s great to eat when you study. It offers a healthy dose of vitamin E to protect your brain against nerve-cell degeneration, as well as folate, which increases blood flow to the brain to prevent mental fatigue.

 

Edward Bawden 1937 Braintree Cattle Market

 

Edward Bawden linocut circa 1983.

 

Follow the Sun

In March morning light reaches my office. This same angle brightens up the YMCA pool ceiling. I follow the sun while walking my dog for warmth and vitamin D. The afternoon sun touches the front of my house before finally setting at 7:30.

Anna Smith

I never suffer from writer’s block, because I believe if you just sit and write something, then before you know it a character will speak to you. 

I’m not sure I’ve been given a lot of advice on writing. I write from instinct, maybe even from need. 

If you are a new writer, then the message is to keep going, keep writing, never stop believing. And even if you get knocked back from a few publishers or agents, go back to your characters and move the story on.

Anna Smith is an award-winning journalist who spent a lifetime in daily newspapers, reporting from the frontline all over the world. Her first series of thrillers featured a gritty Glasgow journalist Rosie Gilmour, and Anna used her vast experience as a journalist to create the popular character. Her growing army of readers are now enjoying Anna’s gangland crime thrillers, and the first novel Blood Feud introduces Kerry Casey, who becomes head of a Glasgow crime clan with contacts all over the UK. The sequel, Fight Back, is in Amazon Kindle’s top five for the past month. It’s published in paperback on May 2.

Keep the Ball Rolling

 In many cases when a reader puts a story aside because it “got boring,” the boredom arose because the writer grew enchanted with his powers of description and lost sight of his priority, which is to keep the ball rolling. 

STEPHEN KING

Lovecraft

At night, when the objective world has slunk back into its cavern and left dreamers to their own, there come inspirations and capabilities impossible at any less magical and quiet hour. No one knows whether or not he is a writer unless he has tried writing at night.

H.P. LOVECRAFT

Mysterious

Narrative art must be clear, but it must also be mysterious. Something should remain unsaid, something just beyond our understanding, a secret. If it's only clear, it's kitsch; if it's only mysterious (a much easier path), it's condescending and pretentious and soon monotonous.

STEPHEN SONDHEIM

Eggshell Rainbow

 

Public Safety

We should think about public safety the way we think about public health. No one would suggest that hospitals alone can keep a population healthy, no matter how well run they might be. A healthy community needs neighborhood clinics, health education, parks, environments free of toxins, government policies that protect the public during health emergencies, and so much more. Health isn’t just about hospitals; safety isn’t just about police.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2021/reimagine-safety/

Seneca

The wise man is neither raised up by prosperity nor cast down by adversity; for always he has striven to rely predominantly on himself, and to derive all joy from himself. 

-Seneca

Books

 “Books are for people who wish they were somewhere else.”

― Mark Twain

Before I was Born

“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”

― Mark Twain

Wrinkles

“Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been.”

― Mark Twain

Mark Twain

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”

― Mark Twain

George Bernard Shaw

 “Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.”

 — George Bernard Shaw

Any Writer...

“Any writer who knows what he's doing isn't doing very much.”

― Nelson Algren

Never play cards with a man called Doc.

“Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom's. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own.”
― Nelson Algren, A Walk on the Wild Side

Algren

“You don't write a novel out of sheer pity any more than you blow a safe out of a vague longing to be rich. A certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from society is as essential to creative writing as it is to armed robbery.”
― Nelson Algren, Nonconformity: Writing on Writing

A certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from society is as essential to creative writing as it is to armed robbery. The strong-armer isn't out merely to turn a fast buck any more than the poet is out solely to see his name on the cover of a book, whatever satisfaction that event may afford him. What both need most deeply is to get even.

NELSON ALGREN

Anne Lamott

To be a good writer, you not only have to write a great deal but you have to care. You do not have to have a complicated moral philosophy. But a writer always tries, I think, to be part of the solution, to understand a little about life and to pass this on.

ANNE LAMOTT

Edwidge Danticat

 

When you write, it’s like braiding your hair. Taking a handful of coarse unruly strands and attempting to bring them unity. Your fingers have still not perfected the task. Some of the braids are long, others are short. Some are thick, others are thin. Some are heavy. Others are light. Like the diverse women of your family. Those whose fables and metaphors, whose similes and soliloquies, whose diction and je ne sais quoi daily slip into your survival soup, by way of their fingers.

EDWIDGE DANTICAT

Rhichard Rhodes

I like writing very much. I often ask my writing friends if they like to write, and they always say they don’t. They love the research, perhaps the fun after a book is published, but not the task of writing itself. I think that is the glory of the work. You have assembled all of this information. You have thought about it. You have dreamed about it. You’re ready. You are bursting with all of this and then you have this meticulous, but somehow not entirely rational, process of organizing it so that you communicate it transparently to other human beings. That is great fun.

RICHARD RHODES

Two Young Ladies

“Two young ladies, in toreador pants and mohair sweaters, whose swirling coiffures looked as though they had been squeezed from an icing gun, had ranged themselves at the fountain.”
― S.J Perelman, The World of SJ Perelman: The Marx Brother's Greatest Scriptwriter

S.J. Perelman

“The main obligation is to amuse yourself.”

― S.J. Perelman

Al Hirschfeld

 Obituary: Al Hirschfeld 1903-2003
posted April 30, 2003

"It is never my aim to destroy the play or the actor by ridicule," Hirschfeld wrote in 1970 of his theatre drawings in particular and the art of caricature in general. "The passion of personal conviction belongs to the playwright; the physical interpretation of the character belongs to the actor; the delineation in line belongs to me. My contribution is to take the character -- created by the playwright and acted out by the actor -- and reinvent it for the reader."

One of the rare critics of Hirschfeld's work -- perhaps the only one on public record -- was television show host Allen Funt, who felt that in his portrait Hirschfeld had made him look, "like an ape." Hirschfeld's famous retort: "I had nothing to do with it. That was God's work."

Ben Okri

 Okri said, "Literature doesn't have a country. Shakespeare is an African writer. ... The characters of Turgenev are ghetto dwellers. Dickens' characters are Nigerians. ... Literature may come from a specific place, but it always lives in its own unique kingdom."  His latest collection of poetry is titled A Fire in My Head (2021)

Terry McMillan

“Writing is the only place I can be myself and not feel judged.”

― Terry McMillan

Einstein's Birthday

 “Stay away from negative people. They have a problem for every solution.” 

          - Albert Einstein Born on this day, in 1879

 

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving” 

- Albert Einstein Born on this day, in 1879

What got me Started on Marion's recipes

Marion Cunningham's "American Meatloaf" from "The Supper Book." it is cooked freeform shaped into an oval on a bakingsheet

Preheat oven  to 350
finely chop the following and sautee in 2 Tbs butter over medium heat until soft:
1 large onion
2-3 med. carrots
2-3 stalks celery
In a large (very large) bowl, combine:
1/2 lb ground pork
1 lb ground beef
the sauteed veggies
3 cloves minced garlic (I increase this amount a bit)
1 1/4 cup fresh bread crumbs
1 tsp. salt or to taste
black pepper to taste
3/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/8 tsp. cayenne
1 1/2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup ketchup
2/3 cup water
Thoroughly combine the above with your hands and pat into shape in a baking pan. Don't press together too firmly--use a light touch and it will be tender. Bake 45-50 mins in 350 degree oven. Good when baked with potatoes and onions, carrots, or any other such winter veggie. Makes fabulous sandwiches the next day. Meatloaf sandwiches are my fave! This makes a TON of meatloaf.

Gustave Flaubert

 

“Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

 

“At the bottom of her heart, however, she was waiting for something to happen. Like shipwrecked sailors, she turned despairing eyes upon the solitude of her life, seeking afar off some white sail in the mists of the horizon. She did not know what this chance would be, what wind would bring it her, towards what shore it would drive her, if it would be a shallop or a three-decker, laden with anguish or full of bliss to the portholes. But each morning, as she awoke, she hoped it would come that day; she listened to every sound, sprang up with a start, wondered that it did not come; then at sunset, always more saddened, she longed for the morrow.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“She wanted to die, but she also wanted to live in Paris.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“Never touch your idols: the gilding will stick to your fingers."

(Il ne faut pas toucher aux idoles: la dorure en reste aux mains.)”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“What better occupation, really, than to spend the evening at the fireside with a book, with the wind beating on the windows and the lamp burning bright...Haven't you ever happened to come across in a book some vague notion that you've had, some obscure idea that returns from afar and that seems to express completely your most subtle feelings?”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“Love, she thought, must come suddenly, with great outbursts and lightnings,--a hurricane of the skies, which falls upon life, revolutionises it, roots up the will like a leaf, and sweeps the whole heart into the abyss.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“An infinity of passion can be contained in one minute, like a crowd in a small space.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“You forget everything. The hours slip by. You travel in your chair through centuries you seem seem to see before you, your thoughts are caught up in the story, dallying with the details or following the course of the plot, you enter into characters, so that it seems as if it were your own heart beating beneath their costumes.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“One's duty is to feel what is great, cherish the beautiful, and to not accept the conventions of society with the ignominy that it imposes upon us.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“Everything, even herself, was now unbearable to her. She wished that, taking wing like a bird, she could fly somewhere, far away to regions of purity, and there grow young again.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“Deep down, all the while, she was waiting for something to happen. Like a sailor in distress, she kept casting desperate glances over the solitary waster of her life, seeking some white sail in the distant mists of the horizon. She had no idea by what wind it would reach her, toward what shore it would bear her, or what kind of craft it would be – tiny boat or towering vessel, laden with heartbreaks or filled to the gunwhales with rapture. But every morning when she awoke she hoped that today would be the day; she listened for every sound, gave sudden starts, was surprised when nothing happened; and then, sadder with each succeeding sunset, she longed for tomorrow.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“She was not happy--she never had been. Whence came this insufficiency in life--this instantaneous turning to decay of everything on which she leaned? But if there were somewhere a being strong and beautiful, a valiant nature, full at once of exaltation and refinement, a poet's heart in an angel's form, a lyre with sounding chords ringing out elegiac epithalamia to heaven, why, perchance, should she not find him? Ah! How impossible! Besides, nothing was worth the trouble of seeking it; everything was a lie. Every smile hid a yawn of boredom, every joy a curse, all pleasure satiety, and the sweetest kisses left upon your lips only the unattainable desire for a greater delight.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“She would have liked not to be alive, or to be always asleep.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“But, in her life, nothing was going to happen. Such was the will of God! The future was a dark corridor, and at the far end the door was bolted.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“The denigration of those we love always detaches us from them in some degree. Never touch your idols: the gilding will stick to your fingers.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“She was the amoureuse of all the novels, the heroine of all the plays, the vague “she” of all the poetry books.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“Haven't you ever happened to come across in a book some vague notion that you've had, some obscure idea that returns from afar and that seems to express completely your most subtle feelings?”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“I'm absolutely removed from the world at such times...The hours go by without my knowing it. Sitting there I'm wandering in countries I can see every detail of - I'm playing a role in the story I'm reading. I actually feel I'm the characters - I live and breath with them.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“Of all the icy blasts that blow on love, a request for money is the most chilling.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“He had carefully avoided her out of the natural cowardice that characterizes the stronger sex.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“She loved the sea for its storms alone, cared for vegetation only when it grew here and there among ruins. She had to extract a kind of personal advantage from things and she rejected as useless everything that promised no immediate gratification — for her temperament was more sentimental than artistic, and what she was looking for was emotions, not scenery.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“La parole humaine est comme un chaudron fêlé où nous battons des mélodies à faire danser les ours, quand on voudrait attendrir les étoiles.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“And she felt as though she had been there, on that bench, for an eternity. For an infinity of passion can be contained in one minute, like a crowd in a small space.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“After the pain of this disappointment her heart once more stood empty, and the succession of identical days began again.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“[T]he truth is that fullness of soul can sometimes overflow in utter vapidity of language, for none of us can ever express the exact measure of his needs or his thoughts or his sorrows; and human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“Doesn't it seem to you," asked Madame Bovary, "that the mind moves more freely in the presence of that boundless expanse, that the sight of it elevates the soul and gives rise to thoughts of the infinite and the ideal?”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“He was bored now when Emma suddenly began to sob on his breast; and his heart, like the people who can only stand a certain amount of music, became drowsy through indifference to the vibrations of a love whose subtleties he could no longer distinguish.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“What baffled him was that there should be all this fuss about something so simple as love.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“Before her marriage she had thought that she had love within her grasp; but since the happiness which she had expected this love to bring her hadn’t come, she supposed she must have been mistaken. And Emma tried to imagine just what was meant, in life, by the words “bliss,” “passion,” and “rapture” - words that had seemed so beautiful to her in books.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“I believe in the Supreme Being, in a Creator, whatever he may be. I care little who has placed us here below to fulfil our duties as citizens and fathers of families; but I don't need to go to church to kiss silver plates, and fatten, out of my pocket, a lot of good-for-nothings who live better than we do. For one can know him as well in a wood, in a field, or even contemplating the eternal vault like the ancients. My God! mine is the God of Socrates, of Franklin, of Voltaire, and of Beranger! I am for the profession of faith of the 'Savoyard Vicar,' and the immortal principles of '89! And I can't admit of an old boy of a God who takes walks in his garden with a cane in his hand, who lodges his friends in the belly of whales, dies uttering a cry, and rises again at the end of three days; things absurd in themselves, and completely opposed, moreover, to all physical laws, which proves to us, by the way, that priests have always wallowed in turpid ignorance, in which they would fain engulf the people with them.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary