T. S. Eliot

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
― T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets

Leroy Carr: Papa's on the Housetop

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlCjZziJSR0

Papa's On The House Top

Song by Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell

Mama made Papa be quiet as a mouse
So Papa climbed on top of the house
Made a lot of whoopee, made a lot of noise
Stood up and cheered with the rest of the boys 

Baby's in the cradle, brother's gone to town
Sister's in the parlor, trying on a gown
Mama's in the kitchen messing all around
Papa's on the house top, won't come down 

The Blues they've come, the Blues they've come
Nobody knows where the Blues come from
The Blues they've gone, the Blues they've gone
And everybody's happy when the old Blues gone 

Baby's in the cradle, brother's gone to town
Sister's in the parlor, trying on a gown
Mama's in the kitchen messing all around
Papa's on the house top, won't come down 

Papa saw a chicken out in the yard
Picked up a rock and hit him hard
Hit him hard, killed him dead
Now the chicken's in the gravy and the gravy's on the bread 

Baby's in the cradle, brother's gone to town
Sister's in the parlor, trying on a gown
Mama's in the kitchen messing all around
Papa's on the house top, won't come down 

Hush-a-little baby, don't you cry
Blues gonna leave you by and by
Papa came in, sure was cold
Put the baby in the cradle and the Blues outdoor 

Baby's in the cradle, brother's gone to town
Sister's in the parlor, trying on a gown
Mama's in the kitchen messing all around
Papa's on the house top, won't come down

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Leroy Carr

Austin Kleon

The way to get over creative block is to simply place some constraints on yourself. It seems contradictory, but when it comes to creative work, limitations mean freedom. Write a song on your lunch break. Paint a painting with only one color. Start a business without any start-up capital. Shoot a movie with your iPhone and a few of your friends. Build a machine out of spare parts. Don't make excuses for not working -- make things with the time, space, and materials you have, right now.

AUSTIN KLEON

Less is More with Laundry Soap

I've been using way too much, (1/2 cup) Arm & Hammer laundry soap powder per top load wash when 1/4 cup is perfect!

Guidelines are just suggestions. The reality is that you need minimal detergent to get the job done. Modern washers, even top loaders, are much better at their job than older washers. Most of the washing is done by the water and the mechanical movement in the washer.

Article

Sunday Supper

Steamed Potato Carrot Cabbage with Spicy Chicken Peanut Sauce

Last night I cooked potatoes cabbage and carrots steaming under pressure for 5 minutes in the cooker. While that was cooking I chopped a frozen chicken breast into very small pieces. I sauteed it in my frying pan and added peanut butter and some sriracha, soy sauce, salt, and leftover steaming water from the pressure cooker. When the chicken mixture was cooked and soupy I added the cooked potatoes cabbage and carrots. The chicken peanut sauce served as a dressing on the veggies. It was excellent! I saved the 6 cups of concentrated steaming water from the pressure cooker because it's liquid gold for soup bread or my next meal.

A Lift from Margo

I swam 42 laps and Margo gave me a lift home from the pool in her fancy white Mercedes with Frank Sinatra playing. She was wearing a camouflage hunting jacket over her bathing suit and I was still wearing mine while wrapped in a purple towel. We were laughing our heads off. Look at us, what will the neighbors think?

Anne Rice

There are no rules. It’s amazing how willing people are to tell you that you aren’t a real writer unless you conform to their clichés and their rules. My advice? Reject rules and critics out of hand. Define yourself. Do it your way. Make yourself the writer of your dreams.

ANNE RICE

Lin Yutang

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials. - Lin Yutang

If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live.

 - Lin Yutang

Dream

I dreamed I was on a long outdoor line for vaccinations. I was the last one. A young woman needed a ride home. I recognized her. We can take you, I said. I live all the way in Richmond. That's fine. Bill went off to get the car. He said if he drove around the river he could park much closer to us. When the girl spoke her mouth was filled with silver pushpins. Most people want to vomit if they come close to me. That is my knack, she said. My knack is remembering faces, I said. I asked the girl her name. Incubus, my mother thought it was a cool name. Mothers, I said. I ran away from home. Me too she said.

Freedom and Love

“Freedom and love go together. Love is not a reaction. If I love you because you love me, that is mere trade, a thing to be bought in the market; it is not love. To love is not to ask anything in return, not even to feel that you are giving something- and it is only such love that can know freedom.”

― J. Krishnamurti

Truth

“It is truth that liberates, not your effort to be free.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, The First and Last Freedom

Separating Yourself

“When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti 

The Whole

 “You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing, and dance, and write poems, and suffer, and understand, for all that is life.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti

Jiddu Krishnamurti

"If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation."

― Jiddu Krishnamurti 

Amusement Park Rides

“Amusement park rides to me are like kinetic sculptures,” Mr. Staples said. “Especially the vintage rides. They’re beautiful pieces of history — machines you have to keep up, keep painted, put love into. The mentality in America is, ‘This looks rundown, let’s replace it.’ But you learn over time that keeping what you have is what keeps people coming back.”

On inspection day, hearing that I’d grown up in this town, a woman examining a deep fryer asked if I was sad to see the park like this. It was hard to answer, because of course I saw the stillness and decay; but I could also see it just as it was, lit up and full of life.

Article by By Kate Morgan

Charles Kingsley

We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements in life, when all we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about. 

Charles Kingsley

John Berryman, Recovery

“There is no such thing as Freedom (though it is the most important condition of human life, after Humility, -which does not exist either). There is only Slavery (walls around one) and absence-of-Slavery (ability to walk in any direction, or to remain still).”
― John Berryman, Recovery

John Berryman

“You should always be trying to write a poem you are unable to write, a poem you lack the technique, the language, the courage to achieve. Otherwise you're merely imitating yourself, going nowhere, because that's always easiest.”

― John Berryman

“We must travel in the direction of our fear.”  

― John Berryman

A Good Day

When I came home from swimming I was exhausted. I crawled back into bed with my dog and slept for two hours. I felt better and told myself if I got my work done I could vacuum as a reward. I know it sounds silly but I have been dying to vacuum. My sprained foot has caused me to postpone it. I knew that work had to come first or I'd miss the opportunity to focus. I had a good session and I vacuumed to celebrate and went back and worked some more. Then I made turkey meatballs using my bread and we ate them with gloop (defrosted beans and greens).

Murakami

So many writers write small, shallow things in a complicated, difficult style. I think what I want to do is write serious, complicated, difficult things in a very easy style that is fluid and comfortable to read. In order to write those difficult things, you have to be willing to go down, deeper and deeper. So, in the forty years that I’ve been writing, I have worked out a technique for that. It’s like a physical technique—not an intellectual technique. I think if you’re a fiction writer and you’re too intelligent, you cannot write. But if you’re stupid, you cannot write. You have to find a position in between. That is very difficult.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/the-underground-worlds-of-haruki-murakami