Stay In Touch -Have I not proven to you that I Am in the saving sinners business? -Jesus
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Pentimento: Disarming All Hostility
Pentimento: Disarming All Hostility
Excerpt:
Because she's an adult and refuses acknowledge the abuse, much less press charges, neither the police nor adult protective services can do anything about it. The daughter qualifies for a job at a sheltered workshop, but she refuses this and all other services, because she was mercilessly ostracized by her peers growing up and doesn't want anyone to think she's more disabled than she believes herself to be.
Dear readers, would you please pray for this young woman's safety and peace, and that of her unborn child? May God reward you for your prayers.
Excerpt:
Because she's an adult and refuses acknowledge the abuse, much less press charges, neither the police nor adult protective services can do anything about it. The daughter qualifies for a job at a sheltered workshop, but she refuses this and all other services, because she was mercilessly ostracized by her peers growing up and doesn't want anyone to think she's more disabled than she believes herself to be.
Dear readers, would you please pray for this young woman's safety and peace, and that of her unborn child? May God reward you for your prayers.
A Common Reader: Debits and Credits: The Changelings and Sea Constables
A Common Reader: Debits and Credits: The Changelings and Sea Constables
Excerpt:
Kipling also highlights the moral cost and degradation possible in war through the actions of several members in the party. Will they be able to go back to selling groceries or work in the bank after what they’ve been? The most disturbing part of the story may be that they think so.
Excerpt:
Kipling also highlights the moral cost and degradation possible in war through the actions of several members in the party. Will they be able to go back to selling groceries or work in the bank after what they’ve been? The most disturbing part of the story may be that they think so.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Transmissions from a Lone Star: Faith in helicopters | Columnists | RIA Novosti
Transmissions from a Lone Star: Faith in helicopters | Columnists | RIA Novosti
Excerpt:
Hey, join the party!’ someone shouted.
Excerpt:
Hey, join the party!’ someone shouted.
Texans love a barbecue, I thought.
There was nothing interesting in the mail.
Back home I reflected upon the spectacle. The human attraction to death and carnage is profound; the news frequently amounts to little more catastrophe porn. Everybody watches it; my neighbors simply had tickets to the live floor show.
But they were so calm, as if the helicopters overhead had lulled them into the same ‘it can’t happen to me’ sleep we experience when watching something awful on a TV or computer screen. This time they were right; within a few hours, the fire was contained. Nobody died. But fires are popping up all over the place right now. The week before, another local neighborhood went up in flames, while in June a blaze destroyed 60 acres of land, and was lapping at the gates of a luxury housing development before it was extinguished. The helicopters arrived just in time to save the rich folk’s real estate investments.
The poor folk were not so lucky: 15 homes were destroyed....
Ally Yourself...with the small things...simply
From a Year with Rilke:
Here in this vast landscape, swept by winds from the sea, I wonder if there is any person anywhere who can answer the questions that stir in the depths of your being. For even the best miss the mark when they use words for what is elusive and nearly unsayable. But nonetheless, I believe you are not left without a solution, if you turn to things like those that are refreshing my eyes. If you ally yourself with nature, with her sheer existence, with the small things that others overlook and that so suddenly can become huge and immeasurable; if you have this love for what is plain and try very simply, as one who serves to win the confidence of what seems poor: then everything will become easier for you, more coherent and somehow more reconciling, perhaps not in your conscious mind, but in your innermost awareness.
Worpswede, July 16, 1903
Letters to a Young Poet
You've GOTTA read this!: The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger (Audio)
Excerpt:
...There is so much cleverness, so much emotion, so much charm packed in one book here, it was almost more than my little heart could take at times. Towards the end, I did have to pull my car over and sit and get myself under control. And just when you think things couldn't get any more perfect, in walk the REFERENCES. Special places around Chicago that really exist. Music (particularly punk). Classic literature. They were like little hidden nuggets of flavor. Now suddenly, I see why all of you out there had such trouble with Niffenegger's second novel "Her Fearful Symmetry" (which I liked alot but didn't love). Expectations, my word. It is probably all good that I didn't read this book first. Now my heart has been claimed...
Books, Inq. — The Epilogue: Bohumil Hrabal
Books, Inq. — The Epilogue: Bohumil Hrabal
Excerpt:
I don't know what to say about Hrabal's I Served the King of England except perhaps to say that it's the best book I've read in a long, long time...
Excerpt:
I don't know what to say about Hrabal's I Served the King of England except perhaps to say that it's the best book I've read in a long, long time...
Our Little Worlds: Lichens and Sparrows
The lichen’s beauty is in the many different colors it can exhibit from rock to rock.
“When you take photos the lichen almost looks like flowers,” Dininger said. “The lichen pulls different minerals out of the rock and that is how they get their color, pink, lavender, orange, yellow, green and even black,” she said. “It’s a very cool phenomena and after it rains the lichen look brilliant.” ~ Kate Smith, Lichen's Beauty/Live In Full Color, UBC
O! Pioneers!
The most interesting thing about lichens is that they actually consist of two different kinds of living things-an alga and a fungus. Lichen, therefore, is really a compound creature. This association is called “symbiosis”. The fungus is a network of small fungal root-hairs (called “hyphae”) that mechanically protects the algae which, in turn, produces carbohydrates, organic nitrogen and vitamins, thus providing the fungus with growth materials. In this manner, both organisms benefit.
In fact, scientists have attempted to separate the lichen fungi and algae and then tried to grow them on their own. It didn’t work. Neither could grow without the other.
In fact, scientists have attempted to separate the lichen fungi and algae and then tried to grow them on their own. It didn’t work. Neither could grow without the other.
A community of lichens
Note the large rock at the road junctions on the Fossil Hill Nature Walk. There is almost no bare rock. Lichens of different colors cover virtually all of this rock. Each color indicates a slightly different species of lichens.Lichens eventually die and, when they do, their decomposition creates a weak solution of carbonic acid that eats into the rock. This “rock dust”, mixed with other organic materials makes a thin soil where mosses can grow. Mosses, in turn, provide a base for grasses and other small plants. Eventually there is enough soil for bushes and trees to get a toe hold. In this manner, with time, rocky outcrops turn into soil and become forests. Lichen, therefore, are “pioneer” plants that start the process of breaking down rocks to produce soil.
Jerry Fritzke, Open Space 3/1/03
Our Ever Economical Creator....And Wild Painter!
Lichens are widespread and may be long-lived; however, many are also vulnerable to environmental disturbance, and may be useful to scientists in assessing the effects of air pollution, ozone depletion, and metal contamination. Lichens have also been used in making dyes and perfumes, as well as in traditional medicines.
...so many different colors, it looks like a discarded artist’s palette... Wikipedia
If you are wondering what prompted this...the flock of sparrows outside my window is upset that I have not put the bird seed out in the back yard. I peeked out to see several on my Rocky Mountain lichen-covered rock. There is a very cool mountain breeze this morning.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Books, Inq. — The Epilogue: Joseph Epstein wonders ...[Updated]
Excerpt:
... through the magic of dull and faulty prose, the contributors to "The Cambridge History of the American Novel" have been able to make these presumably worldly subjects seem parochial in the extreme—of concern only to one another, which is certainly one derogatory definition of the academic...
------------
[A good read. I look at this question from the research perspective that I am 'embroiled' in, rather more like being 'entwined' by' a tornado. My perspective is not a linear one. In math terms it is more like a derivative---or worse. I have 'labelled' it: the "Captivity of the Dimensions of Alienation" and that is a 'fine phrase' fraught with monstrous tentacles. The whole encompasses more than American Lit.....Javier Marías in his important work, Your Face Tomorrow: Shadow, and Farewell, comes close to it...or...
------------
[A good read. I look at this question from the research perspective that I am 'embroiled' in, rather more like being 'entwined' by' a tornado. My perspective is not a linear one. In math terms it is more like a derivative---or worse. I have 'labelled' it: the "Captivity of the Dimensions of Alienation" and that is a 'fine phrase' fraught with monstrous tentacles. The whole encompasses more than American Lit.....Javier Marías in his important work, Your Face Tomorrow: Shadow, and Farewell, comes close to it...or...
Post-Borges Argentine literature has become, Bolaño claims, “the literature of doom,” a “literary nightmare, literary suicide, a literary dead end.” That sounds worse than he means – better literary nightmares than real ones.[ h/t Wuthering Expectations' blog]..
...but there are still some out there...Walker Percy, Yvor Winters...to name just a few...There are others]
----
As it is, I am not exactly released from the tornado to record the findings yet...in case anyone is really interested in the answer(s). A wondrous hint: I am 'transported' and 'eased' by the Buskers' Flamenco guitars.
Addendum: I had the same experience in the cathedral in El Paso,Texas when after returning from the altar the people spontaneously broke out in song...a lavare...to be exact...The women clapped their hands in the same way they made tortillas... Before that joyous song broke out, I preferred not to return to the icy chill of the place which was stultifying. In their joy they flew off somewhere and left us behind.
Addendum: I had the same experience in the cathedral in El Paso,Texas when after returning from the altar the people spontaneously broke out in song...a lavare...to be exact...The women clapped their hands in the same way they made tortillas... Before that joyous song broke out, I preferred not to return to the icy chill of the place which was stultifying. In their joy they flew off somewhere and left us behind.
Like a Slow-Release Drug
Like a Slow-Release Drug
Excerpt:
Patrick at Plastic Beatitude turned me on to another fine essay, this one by Jim Santel at The Millions, in observance of 50th Anniversary of The Moviegoer....[Walker Percy...]
Excerpt:
Patrick at Plastic Beatitude turned me on to another fine essay, this one by Jim Santel at The Millions, in observance of 50th Anniversary of The Moviegoer....[Walker Percy...]
Which Great Genius Is Most Like You? : Quizzes : The Science Channel
A fun trip.
Not surprisingly the result of my test:
Albert Einstein. You are a logician. You are certain that all of our existence can be explained by step-by-step processes, when coupled by short bursts of inspiration. The secrets to the world are not hidden in our souls, but lie deep within the miracle of mathematics and clear, precise thinking. Your hair may be a mess.  I finally decided it was because of my hair and the volkswagon...maybe the pasta, though...Although my friend says it might be because I taught physics but I don't think so. Before you judge me, however, you might want to listen to this: |
The Aeneid, Books 1-6 « Shelf Love
The Aeneid, Books 1-6 « Shelf Love
Excerpt:
Everything is from a different perspective, told from Trojan eyes, not Greek. Virgil’s writing is vivid and visual. There are some wonderfully creepy moments, such as when they sail off from the island of the Cyclops, and all the monsters come down to the shore, silently:
Excerpt:
Everything is from a different perspective, told from Trojan eyes, not Greek. Virgil’s writing is vivid and visual. There are some wonderfully creepy moments, such as when they sail off from the island of the Cyclops, and all the monsters come down to the shore, silently:
Down from the woods and the high hills they lumber in alarm,
the tribe of Cyclops, down to the harbor, crowding the shore,
the brotherhood of Etna! We see them standing there, powerless,
each with his one glaring eye, their heads towering up,
an horrendous muster looming into the vaulting sky
like mountain oaks or cypress heavy with cones
in Jupiter’s soaring woods or Diana’s sacred grove.
I can just see them, huge and terrifying, just out of reach. Poor Dido, too, caught in the torments of love, and dying for it. Her spells and her suicide are among the most vivid scenes...One of the things that caught me off guard — and my only excuse is that, honestly, I had no expectations of this piece going into it — was Aeneas’s voyage to the House of the Dead in Book 6. Several of my heroes this summer have gone down to the dead at one point or another (Orpheus and Odysseus are notable examples, as well as the Norse gods) and so this didn’t at first seem to be anything too out of the way. But then Aeneas begins looking around him. Here are the ghosts of infants. Here are those condemned to die on a false charge. The suicides. Those tormented by love (Dido is there, her wound still fresh.) Parricides, adulterers, regicides… wait. Of course...Dante chose Virgil to lead him through Hell in the Inferno because Virgil had already been there. This was an epiphany of epic (ha!) proportions for me,...
Anecdotal Evidence: `Blessed Day and Sweet Content'
Anecdotal Evidence: `Blessed Day and Sweet Content'
Excerpt:
Serendipity led me to a happy convergence of thoughts on happiness and its absence. The poetry of William Cowper remains a mostly guilt-free pleasure, though I know all the good reasons not to read him. In Book II of The Task (1785) he writes, with a proto-Thoreauvian lilt:
“Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more!”
Suicidal depression haunted Cowper, lending poignancy to his lament, but most of us, in unhappy times, long for sanctuary. In Cowper’s line we hear an echo of Jeremiah 9:2 (King James): “Oh that I had in the wildernesse a lodging place of wayfaring men, that I might leaue my people, and goe from them…” Cowper knew only stray moments of happy lodging, fewer than most.
Excerpt:
Serendipity led me to a happy convergence of thoughts on happiness and its absence. The poetry of William Cowper remains a mostly guilt-free pleasure, though I know all the good reasons not to read him. In Book II of The Task (1785) he writes, with a proto-Thoreauvian lilt:
“Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more!”
Suicidal depression haunted Cowper, lending poignancy to his lament, but most of us, in unhappy times, long for sanctuary. In Cowper’s line we hear an echo of Jeremiah 9:2 (King James): “Oh that I had in the wildernesse a lodging place of wayfaring men, that I might leaue my people, and goe from them…” Cowper knew only stray moments of happy lodging, fewer than most.
Friday, August 26, 2011
A Poem A Day from the George Hail Library ~ Selected by Maria Horvath: One Perfect Rose
A Poem A Day from the George Hail Library ~ Selected by Maria Horvath: One Perfect Rose
Excerpt:
Enjoy the festivities!
The host this week is Irene Latham.
You can find her here.
(Rosa gallica pontiana by Pierre-Joseph
Redouté, 1759-1840, French botanist and
watercolorist)
ONE PERFECT ROSE
A single flow’r he sent me, since we met.
All tenderly his messenger he chose;
Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet —
One perfect rose.
I knew the language of the floweret;
“My fragile leaves,” it said, “his heart enclose.”
Love long has taken for his amulet
One perfect rose.
Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it’s always just my luck to get
One perfect rose.
~ Dorothy Parker (1893-1967), American writer of poetry and short stories
Excerpt:
Enjoy the festivities!
The host this week is Irene Latham.
You can find her here.
(Rosa gallica pontiana by Pierre-Joseph
Redouté, 1759-1840, French botanist and
watercolorist)
ONE PERFECT ROSE
A single flow’r he sent me, since we met.
All tenderly his messenger he chose;
Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet —
One perfect rose.
I knew the language of the floweret;
“My fragile leaves,” it said, “his heart enclose.”
Love long has taken for his amulet
One perfect rose.
Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it’s always just my luck to get
One perfect rose.
~ Dorothy Parker (1893-1967), American writer of poetry and short stories
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Running 'Cause I Can't Fly: Paulo Coelho, "The Power Of The Word"
Running 'Cause I Can't Fly: Paulo Coelho, "The Power Of The Word"
"The Power Of The Word"
by Paulo Coelho
by Paulo Coelho
"Of all the powerful weapons of destruction that man has invented, the most terrible – and the most cowardly – is the word.,,,
Moody Blues - Candle of Life
h/t Runnin' Cause I Can't Fly
"Love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being:
that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task,
the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation."
— Rainer Maria Rilke, "Letters to a Young Poet"
•
And if by some miracle you arrive at this ultimate task,
be profoundly grateful, and burn slowly the candle of life...
- CP
"Love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being:
that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task,
the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation."
— Rainer Maria Rilke, "Letters to a Young Poet"
•
And if by some miracle you arrive at this ultimate task,
be profoundly grateful, and burn slowly the candle of life...
- CP
Books, Inq. — The Epilogue: Easy ride ...
Books, Inq. — The Epilogue: Easy ride ...
Excerpt:
Whilst it may be very hard to say what an ‘I’ is – and it is surely multiple and porous – it is foolish to rush to concluding there’s no ‘I’ at all. It is less reactionary, surely, to rest with the notion that we are something of a mystery to ourselves – a mystery deepened in meditative analysis, not dissolved in it...
Excerpt:
Whilst it may be very hard to say what an ‘I’ is – and it is surely multiple and porous – it is foolish to rush to concluding there’s no ‘I’ at all. It is less reactionary, surely, to rest with the notion that we are something of a mystery to ourselves – a mystery deepened in meditative analysis, not dissolved in it...
A List of Things Roberto Bolaño Discussed with His Friend Rodrigo Fresán | biblioklept
A List of Things Roberto Bolaño Discussed with His Friend Rodrigo Fresán | biblioklept
From the entry “All Subjects with Fresán,” in Bolaño’s collection Between Parentheses, a list of stuff the late writer talked about with his good friend, which includes (as usual) plenty of references to writers, poets, directors—and some funny jokes as well. Read part of Fresán’s essay “The Savage Detective” – it was the piece that first got me to go pick up a Bolaño. Here’s the list—
From the entry “All Subjects with Fresán,” in Bolaño’s collection Between Parentheses, a list of stuff the late writer talked about with his good friend, which includes (as usual) plenty of references to writers, poets, directors—and some funny jokes as well. Read part of Fresán’s essay “The Savage Detective” – it was the piece that first got me to go pick up a Bolaño. Here’s the list—
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Marks in the Margin: Fait Divers
Marks in the Margin: Fait Divers
Excerpt:
To capture this aspect of city life Cole was drawn to what he refers to as “small news,” the sort of thing your read about in the local newspapers and crime sections, or see on the Internet. He says this type of writing is best described by a French term, fait divers, which he translates as “incidents” or “various things.” Here are two examples he mentions:
“Raol G, of Ivry, an untactful husband, came home unexpectedly and stuck his blade in his wife, who was frolicking in the arms of a friend.”
Another: “A dishwasher from Nancy, Vital Frerotte, who had just come back from Lourdes cured forever of tuberculosis, died Sunday by mistake.”
Both of these fait divers are short, small incidents with large effects, at times ironic in tone, at other times rather humorous on first reading. ...
Excerpt:
To capture this aspect of city life Cole was drawn to what he refers to as “small news,” the sort of thing your read about in the local newspapers and crime sections, or see on the Internet. He says this type of writing is best described by a French term, fait divers, which he translates as “incidents” or “various things.” Here are two examples he mentions:
“Raol G, of Ivry, an untactful husband, came home unexpectedly and stuck his blade in his wife, who was frolicking in the arms of a friend.”
Another: “A dishwasher from Nancy, Vital Frerotte, who had just come back from Lourdes cured forever of tuberculosis, died Sunday by mistake.”
Both of these fait divers are short, small incidents with large effects, at times ironic in tone, at other times rather humorous on first reading. ...
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Vol de la Oiseaux Sauvages II
Remember those 'wild birds'? Oh, I am so happy! Truly: Vol de la Oiseaux Sauvages
Even alone he is 'symphony!'...
Even alone he is 'symphony!'...
Sounds of Silence
Es, según la revista Rolling Stone, la canción 156 en la lista de las más grandes. Yo le daría un puesto mucho más alto: es un icono de la segunda mitad del siglo XX. Y ellos son uno de los dúos más grandes de la historia musical.
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comment: QUESTO TESTO è UN OSSIMORO CONTINUO.... MA STUPENDA CANZONE E IMMENSO SIGNIFICATO...
------------
Lyrics: Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence
In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence
And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never shared
No one dared
Disturb the sound of silence
"Fools," said I, "you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence
And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sound of silence"
This is the original version from 1964 from the album "Wednesday Morning, 3 AM." Just Simon's guitar and the vocals. The famous version was released in 1966. After "Wednesday Morning, 3 AM" flopped, they split up. Without either their knowledge, electric guitars and drums were added and that version of The Sound of Silence became very popular, reaching #1 on the charts in America on New Years Day, 1966. Because of this, Simon and Garfunkel teamed up again and created three more studio albums, one of which one a Grammy award for album of the year and song of the year (Bridge Over Troubled Water).
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comment: QUESTO TESTO è UN OSSIMORO CONTINUO.... MA STUPENDA CANZONE E IMMENSO SIGNIFICATO...
------------
Lyrics: Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence
In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence
And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never shared
No one dared
Disturb the sound of silence
"Fools," said I, "you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence
And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sound of silence"
This is the original version from 1964 from the album "Wednesday Morning, 3 AM." Just Simon's guitar and the vocals. The famous version was released in 1966. After "Wednesday Morning, 3 AM" flopped, they split up. Without either their knowledge, electric guitars and drums were added and that version of The Sound of Silence became very popular, reaching #1 on the charts in America on New Years Day, 1966. Because of this, Simon and Garfunkel teamed up again and created three more studio albums, one of which one a Grammy award for album of the year and song of the year (Bridge Over Troubled Water).
Karen Edmisten: Bits and Pieces of Our Days
Karen Edmisten: Bits and Pieces of Our Days
Excerpt:
The other day, Lissa mentioned the free online courses available through Stanford which reminded me that I've been meaning to share these links:
The Top Five Collections of Free University Courses
400 Free Online Courses from Top Universities
MIT OpenCourseWare
Universities With the Best Free Online Courses
Open Yale Courses
Anne-with-an-e loves Human Behavioral Biology, available on iTunes University, and Atticus often has a Civil War Lecture on when he's cooking. ....
Excerpt:
The other day, Lissa mentioned the free online courses available through Stanford which reminded me that I've been meaning to share these links:
The Top Five Collections of Free University Courses
400 Free Online Courses from Top Universities
MIT OpenCourseWare
Universities With the Best Free Online Courses
Open Yale Courses
Anne-with-an-e loves Human Behavioral Biology, available on iTunes University, and Atticus often has a Civil War Lecture on when he's cooking. ....
Monday, August 22, 2011
The Diary Review: Death of a bandit
The Diary Review: Death of a bandit
Excerpt:
Walter Scott, one of Britain’s greatest writers and the first to gain international celebrity status, was born 240 years ago today. His novels - such as Ivanhoe - and poetry are still widely read today, but his diaries, though still in print and considered by some to be a ‘superb work’, are less well known. They cover only the last years of his life. In the very first entry, Scott explains how he came to be inspired to start writing a journal; and, in another entry, a few months before his death, the adventure writer in him is anxious to record details he has heard about a notorious bandit...
Excerpt:
Walter Scott, one of Britain’s greatest writers and the first to gain international celebrity status, was born 240 years ago today. His novels - such as Ivanhoe - and poetry are still widely read today, but his diaries, though still in print and considered by some to be a ‘superb work’, are less well known. They cover only the last years of his life. In the very first entry, Scott explains how he came to be inspired to start writing a journal; and, in another entry, a few months before his death, the adventure writer in him is anxious to record details he has heard about a notorious bandit...
Hello Yankees, this is (sorta) Texas » GetReligion
Hello Yankees, this is (sorta) Texas » GetReligion
Excerpt:
I will admit that, but I’ve never heard the siren call of Austin.
Excerpt:
When people ask me where I’m from — a common question for anyone in Washington, D.C. — my standard response is that I am a prodigal Texan.
What, you might ask, do I mean by that?
I mean that I will always, to one degree or another, be a Texan. It’s in there deep in the DNA and in the emotions. However, I have never understood the concept that Texas is the greatest place on earth and that it is paradise to live on a slab of concrete that has two seasons — burnt and mud. Now, does this attitude of mine have something to do with me being from Port Arthur, which has to be one of the ugliest places on earth (please turn up Janis Joplin singing “Ego Rock” on her live album)? Sure thing. Are there nicer places in Texas?I will admit that, but I’ve never heard the siren call of Austin.
Which brings me to the point...
World Youth Day Pilgrims Mocked, Harassed, Spit On & Threatened By Leftists in Madrid | The Gateway Pundit
World Youth Day Pilgrims Mocked, Harassed, Spit On & Threatened By Leftists in Madrid | The Gateway Pundit
Excerpt: Sad day.
Excerpt: Sad day.
We went in and people were shouting filthy slurs and cursing the Pope and it was awful.
So we knelt down and prayed a Rosary for them in the crowd and got surrounded by angry protesters, shouting and threatening and spitting and filming us and mocking us and trying to burn our flags.
A gay couple came and made out in front of us but whatever.
Anyway, Dominic made us stand up because he felt threatened so we finished our Rosary standing but on the last decade, a fight broke out right next to us between the Catholics who had been standing behind us and and the protesters so some of the other Catholics lead us out of the crowd.
We went back and dropped our bags with Louise and this time Mim stayed back so it was just Me & Dominic & Greg & Billy who went back and prayed a second rosary on the side of the crowd and we got more of the same, people getting up in our faces screaming.
We were met with a couple more of Juventutem but they left after we finished our second Rosary before one had an emotional breakdown.
Everyone left but the group I just mentioned above and we chanted BENEDICTO, BENEDICTO and VIVA PAPA and waved our Papal flag and so on up against the police line.
Lots of people yelled at us still.
Marks in the Margin: The Cellist of Sarajevo
Marks in the Margin: The Cellist of Sarajevo
Excerpt:
t times we scarcely notice significant historical events when they occur. They fail to catch our attention, in one ear out the other as they say. The war in Bosnia and Herzegovia (between April 1992 and December 1994) and the siege of Sarajevo was a case in point for me.
Yes, I was dimly aware of the war, must have read about it in the paper, knew that NATO intervention finally brought the war to an end. But in the midst of all the other news of those days and the work I was doing, the reality of human experience simply flew right by me.
Sometimes a work of fiction can recapture what that was like and in particular what it was like for the people who struggled day after day during those years to stay alive as the shelling and sniper fire continued. Steven Galloway’s The Cellist of Sarajevo accomplished this for me. Instead of focusing on the political and military picture, his novel recounts the experiences of three unconnected individuals.
The fourth character, the cellist of Sarajevo, is based on the real-life musician, Verdran Smailovic, ...
Excerpt:
t times we scarcely notice significant historical events when they occur. They fail to catch our attention, in one ear out the other as they say. The war in Bosnia and Herzegovia (between April 1992 and December 1994) and the siege of Sarajevo was a case in point for me.
Yes, I was dimly aware of the war, must have read about it in the paper, knew that NATO intervention finally brought the war to an end. But in the midst of all the other news of those days and the work I was doing, the reality of human experience simply flew right by me.
Sometimes a work of fiction can recapture what that was like and in particular what it was like for the people who struggled day after day during those years to stay alive as the shelling and sniper fire continued. Steven Galloway’s The Cellist of Sarajevo accomplished this for me. Instead of focusing on the political and military picture, his novel recounts the experiences of three unconnected individuals.
The fourth character, the cellist of Sarajevo, is based on the real-life musician, Verdran Smailovic, ...
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Vol de la Oiseaux Sauvages
Excerpt: Journal 3:
On the Serious Edge of the Blade: Only Snails transgress that edged seam effortlessly.
On the Serious Edge of the Blade: Only Snails transgress that edged seam effortlessly.
Why malacology? And even why not only not other creatures or even kin snails but slugs?
There are many types of bravery as I learned from the slug. One person noted that if you really love someone then you are willing to stand before the entire universe with that person---solely. That really is love. The whole marriage and vows thing with sincere devotion and commitment to the ‘other’s’ being through thick and thin and, I add, kin. It also doesn’t take too many steps to understand the longing existent in the ‘affairs of the heart’ that prompts all the marriage controversies today. Beyond that controversy---and few do walk beyond that---there is the whole vows’ amnesia dis-ease: In other words: “I lied” or "I did not understand."
Few creatures on this earth do not recognize the wild species amongst us that pique our interest, our attention, often our admiration, but more than likely an uneasy fear. When they fly, dive or run on all fours we can easily admire and idolize them. Who doesn’t love the eagle, the wolf, the panther? The whole hunter/fisher mystique is still very popular.
Literature with its drama, especially since the Greek dramatic plays and Shakespeare, now broadcast internationally in videos and films, can also help us overcome our innate un-ease with the romantic (therefore---sighs of relief---fantasy) ‘playing’ of the ‘wild birds’ with unreal scripts, beauties portrayed as gods and goddesses, and endings we can ‘walk away from.’ We can watch and partially interact from the safety of our homes. I could ask safety from what but I won't go there right now.
The Charlie Sheen and Ellen/Portia dramas fall into this category but so do the more ‘benign’ movies. They are not reality but a lot of unsuspecting people get mixed up with much wilder, more dangerous, and deeper societal rejection than they ever bargained for when following these ‘pied pipers’ who could care less about them. There are no safety nets crossing the unsafe bridges of the wild jungles of this world.
Let me make one thing very clear, however. There are wild ones among us. And God created them with gifts unbidden. Because they are there, really existing, looking like us, taunting our lead-weighted, foggy -bottomed fears, we simultaneously run toward and away from these people. There is a fanatical fascination surrounding their entrance into our presence. We become like the proverbial moth headed straight for the flame. We fear them because they mostly do not recognize boundaries or rules, at least not ours. Almost inevitably they disdain these strictures without a qualm. When the wild ones take a more destructive turn the psychopath cells add others to their list, unfortunately after much harm is done. These destructive people make us fear even more the un-harnessed ‘wildness.’
Some wild ones, however, like Beethoven, ride supernova tornadoes that give us great gifts in their returnings from the wild, wind-beaten peaks. Few could ever hear the ninth symphony ‘within’ much less write and perform it. Not many wild ones are even liked. Take Prince, for example. I did not like him at all from just looking at his picture which spoke nothing to me but unbridled arrogance. But when I heard his guitar play “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” I knew that he had walked on that peak, higher probably than most, and probed deeper in unknown depths. His soul, bought and sold, KNEW that song well in all sorts of chords, keys---minor and major, with melodies, counterpoints only he could sing.
As always, it is one thing to describe as observer, quite another to live as one that is there, was there and will be there. You can’t sing songs with notes you’ve never heard. I did not take that wild wonderful music then as arrogance but as such beauty of soaring out of such depths and heights most of us have no understanding about at all. I was enthralled. It was humbling and magnificent. It was that gift that set a wild bird in me free, too.
Soar high, little bird.
Soar high, little bird.
languagehat.com
languagehat.com
Excerpt:
Excerpt:
BOYM ON TRUTH AND SILENCE.
A couple more philological/cultural digressions from Svetlana Boym's Common Places: Mythologies of Everyday Life in Russia
In Russian there are two words for truth — pravda and istina — and no word for authenticity. Pravda evokes justice, fairness, and righteousness; istina derives from "is" (est'), and means that it is a kind of truth and faithfulness to being. In the Orthodox saying, "pravda comes from the heaven, istina comes from the earth," but the two words often sometimes reverse their meaning. By the nineteenth century pravda is the more colloquial term, while istina belongs to the literary language. Russian proverbs and folk sayings, as well as the Soviet anecdotes, are ambiguous when it comes to truth. (They only discuss pravda, never istina, which belongs to a different kind of talk.) On the one hand, there are warnings for truth-seekers: "truth is good but happiness is better," or "if you tell the truth, you give yourself trouble"; and "every Pavel has his own truth"; or, on the grim side, "there was truth at Peter and Paul's." This last "truth" does not refer to the evangelical doctrine but rather to confession under torture in the infamous prison at the Peter and Paul fortress in St. Petersburg. On the other hand, pravda is also heroically celebrated: "truth does not burn in fire and does not drown in the water," or "Varvara is my aunt, but truth is my sister." Yet this common ambiguity about truth from Russian oral culture is rarely echoed in the writings of the Russian intelligentsia. In this respect Russian writers and intellectuals are unfaithful to the Russian folk tradition; many of them considered truth to be much better than happiness. They searched for the essential istina, the word that does not rhyme easily. [A footnote cites Nabokov's essay "Leo Tolstoy."] One feature, however, remains the same — truth has to be "Russian." In the proverbs found in Dal's dictionary, "Russian truth" is positively qualified, as opposed to "Gypsy truth" or "Greek truth" ("If a Greek is telling the truth, keep your ears open"). The affirmation of Russian truth and truthful behavior is one of the important cultural obsessions inherent in the intelligentsia's discourse on Russian identity since the nineteenth century. It is closely linked to the relationship between Russia and the West and the attitudes toward Westernized conventions, rules and laws of behavior, conceptions of legality and the legal system, and boundaries between social and antisocial, lawful and unlawful, private and public. Truthful behavior is frequently seen as sincere behavior, defined in opposition to Western conventional manners.The "is" etymology is disputed (Vasmer provides various other possibilities), but I'm interested in what readers familiar with Russian culture think about the rest of the quote.
And here's a short bit about the words for 'silence':
Continue reading "BOYM ON TRUTH AND SILENCE."In the City
[The complex psychological and spiritual fall out from the Holocaust, the Shoa, still looms as a troubling cloud which will never disappear. It must be dealt with in truth by each person. Even those who have refused to deal with it have chosen their response.]
Trauma as an etiological agent in the genesis of psychopathology was largely ignored from the end of the second world war till after the end of the Vietnam war, forty years later.
[Although, trauma of all sorts have been around since ‘after the Fall!’ These effects are a reality dealt with in the Bible. The ‘heart and mind of man is very deep! Ps. 68. We are made in God’s image.
As Fr. William F. Lynch stated: “There is no city of the well and a city of the sick. We all live in the same city.”
And, no matter how much these woundings of the soul, the heart, and the mind are ignored, denied, shoved under the rug, mis-appropriated, re-translated in the useless attempt to avoid recognition, reject responsibilities, and deny interaction these terrible effects of sin will only continue to haunt the city of man as barbed reminders. And, then, “…ain’t we got fun”…]
…”it has been become clear that…a…majority…suffer from a variety of…problems…overeating…depressions, self-hatred, obsessive fears, …with intimacy…morbid worry…nightmares…addictions of every kind…”
The severity of trauma’s impact…depends on…”the relationship between the victim and the agent(s) responsible for the trauma, the duration…and the availability of social support” denied to most…”the majority…have histories of multiple traumas”…they also reported the wholesale blame and punishment by others is the culminating severe, and severing, factor that…”made their lives unbearable.”
“There is little indication that”…people…”outgrow” these…problems…Their “interpersonal relationships” ultimately suffer without competent interventions and support….because to lead “satisfying lives: being able to engage in competent social relationships has been shown to be an important…factor in the capacity to recover from trauma…(1997)” Dr. Rachel Yehuda, Traumatic Stress, 2001
www.javiermarias.es
Excerpt:
Telling
stories
It´s not easy being successful. Not only is Javier Marías a bestselling author here in Spain, he is also one of the very select band of contemporary Spanish authors whose work appears and sells well in English translation too: All Souls, Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me, A Heart So White and When I Was Mortal are available from all good bookshops.
But herein lies the problem. Some critics in Spain have described him as an ´English writer in translation´ in what I take to be a kind of slur on his Spanishness. Does he take this as an insult?
"It was meant entirely as an insult and came not only from critics but also from fellow writers. I could never take it as such, though, because one of the most admirable things a writer can achieve is to incorporate the general wealth of other languages into his own. But I do mean "into his own", not awkwardly, in a mere transposition of terms or through unnatural syntax. Rather an assimilation of things which theoretically do not exist in your language though they may become part of it after your work. In fact, that is probably the way literature has developed everywhere ever since Homer...
"It´s actually "castiza" literature which ages the most rapidly. And in Spain there is still an official admiration, not a real liking on the part of readers, for the stiff, old-fashioned writing we have endured for too long"....
[Ah,another "writer in translation!" As I previously quoted about Primo Levi on 'translation' and life:
An author who is confronted by one of his own pages translated into a language he knows, feels in turns - or at one and the same time - flattered, betrayed, ennobled, x-rayed, castrated, planed down, violated, embellished, killed. One rarely remains indifferent to a translator, known or unknown who has poked his nose and his fingers into your viscera; you would willingly send him, by turns or at the same time, your heart - suitably wrapped - a cheque, a crown of laurel or one's seconds.' He said that the main danger lay in the words the translator thought he knew. [On Primo Levi and his translating of Kafka…]
Your Face Tomorrow: Shadow, and Farewell, Javier Marías...has startled me into continuing the 'path' of exploring, which is all I feebly can do, the 'take over' [I keep looking for the right word!] in these 'dimensions of alienation.']
Your Face Tomorrow 3: Poison, Shadow and Farewell by Javier Marías: review - Telegraph
Your Face Tomorrow 3: Poison, Shadow and Farewell by Javier Marías: review - Telegraph
Tim Martin is astonished by Poison, Shadow and Farewell by Javier Marías, the concluding part of the Your Face Tomorrow spy trilogy
Excerpt:
Tim Martin is astonished by Poison, Shadow and Farewell by Javier Marías, the concluding part of the Your Face Tomorrow spy trilogy
Excerpt:
The book is also a fearsome examination of violence and betrayal. Marías’s narrative forges links between personal betrayals – in love, or simply by revealing one’s thoughts, “betraying” oneself – and the bad faith of nations; between anger or violent play and the collision of social systems. Your Face Tomorrow is both an inquisitive novel of ideas and a troubling piece of espionage fiction; both a perceptive and compassionate analysis of human connection and an examination of our darkest, most destructive impulses. It deserves to be recognised as one of the finest novels of modern times.
[A wonderful synthesis, a narrative that gives flesh to the nagging realization of the dark warfare in the 'dimensions of alienation' that has been out and about in our world for a very long time.]You've GOTTA read this!: Sunday Salon: Meetings about meetings
Excerpt:
...Her loss has broken my heart into a million pieces. It has been hard for me to focus on much else frankly. Please say a prayer for Susan and her family.
I did get some reading done this week. I read "The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating", a small precious little book about a very ill, bed-bound woman who finds a reason to live in a pet snail. I also finished Alma Katsu's "The Taker" which, uh, like, wow. What the hell? I didn't see any of that coming. I can't wait to meet Alma at SIBA. I also read another little collection of personal thoughts on 9/11 by Artie Van Why called "That Day in September", in honor of the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks. I've now started "Second Nature" by Jaquelyn Mitchard (who wrote "Deep End of the Ocean"). I don't normally accept many review copies, but was compelled...
I did get some reading done this week. I read "The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating", a small precious little book about a very ill, bed-bound woman who finds a reason to live in a pet snail. I also finished Alma Katsu's "The Taker" which, uh, like, wow. What the hell? I didn't see any of that coming. I can't wait to meet Alma at SIBA. I also read another little collection of personal thoughts on 9/11 by Artie Van Why called "That Day in September", in honor of the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks. I've now started "Second Nature" by Jaquelyn Mitchard (who wrote "Deep End of the Ocean"). I don't normally accept many review copies, but was compelled...
[Ah, the re-emergence of malacology...I am forever grateful, Patrick. What can I say.]
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Do not pass by those who suffer, Pope exhorts WYD crowd | SANCTE PATER
Do not pass by those who suffer, Pope exhorts WYD crowd | SANCTE PATER
Excerpt:
Catholic Culture) After praying the Stations of the Cross at World Youth Day on Friday evening, August 19, Pope Benedict XVI told the young participants to “be sure not to pass by on the other side in the face of human suffering, for it is here that God expects you to give of your very best: your capacity for love and compassion.”
“Christ’s passion urges us to take upon our own shoulders the sufferings of the world,” the Pope said, “in the certainty that God is not distant or far removed from man and his troubles.”...
Excerpt:
Catholic Culture) After praying the Stations of the Cross at World Youth Day on Friday evening, August 19, Pope Benedict XVI told the young participants to “be sure not to pass by on the other side in the face of human suffering, for it is here that God expects you to give of your very best: your capacity for love and compassion.”
“Christ’s passion urges us to take upon our own shoulders the sufferings of the world,” the Pope said, “in the certainty that God is not distant or far removed from man and his troubles.”...
A Holocaust Survivor in America
A Holocaust Survivor in America
Excerpt:
Excerpt:
Though using phrases such as "these people" and " a holocaust survivor" sound good, learning about the hardships of a holocaust survivor in America is much more interesting when researching a person who you knew and loved. My grandmother, Maria, was a holocaust survivor. She was a Hungarian native. After the war she moved to the U.S with her husband and small child (my father). She left her family behind for a new life. This was one of many separations. My grandmother was a very "clingy" person. She always wanted you around and expected many phone calls. At times, it was frustrating, but I think she needed to know that she was not alone. This is one symptom of the Concentration Camp Syndrome. If we would forget to call, she would be scared to death. My grandmother was pessimistic, always expecting the worse. Not to mention, that whenever my grandmother came over to my house, my overly friendly dog would come over. My grandmother pretended like it didn't bother her and in fact liked my dog, though it was "the dog" that scared her. When she heard the dog bark, it instantly brought back memories of guard dogs at the concentration camps. Another symptom of the syndrome that was very easily seen in my grandma was that she was a pack rat. After being deprived of so much while in the concentration camp, little things were important. She kept everything; bills, recipes, old pictures, t.v guides. . . you name it, she had it. This particularly annoyed my father. He felt that my grandma should talk to a doctor about her feelings about the war. Though, she would not. This refusal just proved even further how hard it was just to think about the war. Plus, whenever we would go to my grandmother's house for holidays, like Hanukkah, the amount of food served was incredible. We could have fed 25 people though there were only 7 or 8 there. We would be sent home with jugs of Matzo ball soup. After being deprived of food in the camps, my grandmother always had to have enough. Now these are some of the symptoms that my grandmother indirectly showed.
Unlike the above indirect symptoms shown, my father(G. Gaster 97) had to live with my Grandma for eighteen years. I asked my father how he was affected, being the son of a holocaust survivor. He began by saying that he had always been told that he was alone, reffering to the fact that all his relatives were dead. Imagine going through your childhood thinking you had no one. He also mentioned that his mother was very, very over-protective. He remembers being sheltered from sports and other activities. My father also remembers waking up at night to the sound of my Grandma having horrible nightmares. I'm sure it hurt him to see his mother in such pain.....Kuriositas: Poem
Kuriositas: Poem
The power of reading is rarely given a chance to spread its wings and become a visual metaphor but this animated short by Matthias Zentner does just that – showing a woman through four stages of her life and how reading (poetry especially) has an effect on her imagination...
[Amazing.]
The power of reading is rarely given a chance to spread its wings and become a visual metaphor but this animated short by Matthias Zentner does just that – showing a woman through four stages of her life and how reading (poetry especially) has an effect on her imagination...
[Amazing.]
Friday, August 19, 2011
The Benefits of Ignorance « Glory to God for All Things
The Benefits of Ignorance « Glory to God for All Things
Excerpt:
...changes, on a theme I have addressed a number of times.
Excerpt:
...changes, on a theme I have addressed a number of times.
+++
Of course, I have to begin this post with the acknowledgement that I am an ignorant man.
...................
[Sorry, off the topic, I just could not pass this picture up. It was used to teach Newton's Laws in a physics book I used.
Amazing the memories that are fired up on those ol' neurons sometimes!]
Child Mistreatment, Child Abuse
What is it?
Humiliations, spankings and beatings, slaps in the face, betrayal, sexual exploitation, derision, neglect, etc. are all forms of mistreatment, because they injure the integrity and dignity of a child, even if their consequences are not visible right away. However, as adults, most abused children will suffer, and let others suffer, from these injuries. This dynamic of violence can deform some victims into hangmen who take revenge even on whole nations and become willing executors to dictators as unutterably appalling as Hitler and other cruel leaders. Beaten children very early on assimilate the violence they endured, which they may glorify and apply later as parents, in believing that they deserved the punishment and were beaten out of love. They don't know that the only reason for the punishments they have ( or in retrospect, had) to endure is the fact that their parents themselves endured and learned violence without being able to question it. Later, the adults, once abused children, beat their own children and often feel grateful to their parents who mistreated them when they were small and defenseless.
This is why society's ignorance remains so immovable and parents continue to produce severe pain and destructivity - in all "good will", in every generation. Most people tolerate this blindly because the origins of human violence in childhood have been and are still being ignored worldwide. Almost all small children are smacked during the first three years of life when they begin to walk and to touch objects which may not be touched. This happens at exactly the time when the human brain builds up its structure and should thus learn kindness, truthfulness, and love but never, never cruelty and lies. Fortunately, there are many mistreated children who find "helping witnesses" and can feel loved by them. ~Dr. Alice Miller
----------------
With the breakdown of family structures, pervasive sexual promiscuity, drug and alcohol abuse, and fading 'community' support systems of extended family and church, this problem has not only become rampant but a nightmare. It must be addressed or society will continue to be destroyed...everywhere...not just in the US.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
New Dappled Things Released
New Dappled Things Released
Excerpt:
Take Rosemary Callenberg’s “Dust,” in which she depicts, with unnerving realism, the inner life of a married couple struggling between hope and an encroaching sense of futility:
Excerpt:
Take Rosemary Callenberg’s “Dust,” in which she depicts, with unnerving realism, the inner life of a married couple struggling between hope and an encroaching sense of futility:
Ellen nodded, but didn’t say anything. They continued eating without speaking. When she finished, she carried her plate over to the sink and paused to look out the window. That was when she noticed the kitchen was dusty, too. It lay more thickly here, on the windowsill and the angel statue that stood over the sink. It covered even the leaves of the houseplant in the corner. Somehow that was the most depressing; that even this living, growing thing gathered a layer of dead dust. She blew gently on the leaves, but most of it stayed put. Grabbing a paper towel from the rack beside the sink, she moistened a corner and dabbed at it. A few leaves came off in her hand. She hadn’t remembered to water it lately. She crumpled them and threw them in the trash, suddenly angry....
Monday, August 15, 2011
Anecdotal Evidence: `Try to Burn a Piece of Granite'
Anecdotal Evidence: `Try to Burn a Piece of Granite'
Excerpt:
My father-in-law passed along a tip which like so many kernels of information gleaned from the digital pastures of plenty he could no longer trace to its source. During the recent tantrums in London and elsewhere in England, it seems, vandals and thieves had spared the bookshops. On blocks where most businesses were sacked, W.H. Smith and others remained largely intact. A quick online search confirmed the happy rumor.
My first thought was that the rioters hadn’t recognized the paper artifacts arranged on tables and shelves, and correctly deduced they were not edible, potable or sellable, and moved elsewhere to enjoy “the sheer pleasure of assisting entropy in its great work of returning the world to chaos.”...
Excerpt:
My father-in-law passed along a tip which like so many kernels of information gleaned from the digital pastures of plenty he could no longer trace to its source. During the recent tantrums in London and elsewhere in England, it seems, vandals and thieves had spared the bookshops. On blocks where most businesses were sacked, W.H. Smith and others remained largely intact. A quick online search confirmed the happy rumor.
My first thought was that the rioters hadn’t recognized the paper artifacts arranged on tables and shelves, and correctly deduced they were not edible, potable or sellable, and moved elsewhere to enjoy “the sheer pleasure of assisting entropy in its great work of returning the world to chaos.”...
Kuriositas: Baatara Gorge – the Waterfall that Drops into a Cave
Kuriositas: Baatara Gorge – the Waterfall that Drops into a Cave
Only discovered in 1952 the Baatara Waterfall in Lebanon is something more than a little unusual. If waterfalls can be said to have a trick up their sleeve then this one has one of the best. The waterfall drops a staggering 837 feet (255 meters) in to an enormous cave of Jurassic limestone...
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Juan Ramón Jiménez
“Inner poetry eludes words. When one wishes to express something profound, one does not express it in jingles. In my first period I used adjectives, later the adjectives became substantives. Literary artistry is constant suffering for the poet; one doubts the exactness of words, their ability to express what we feel within us. We strive to find that spirited asset, the inner essence.”
His later poetry shows an interest in stark imagery, colors, and the open forms associated with “naked” poetry.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Ammonia Avenue: Alan Parson Project
Because of my chemistry background ---again:
Strange. Have no idea but parts of it make one ponder...
Strange. Have no idea but parts of it make one ponder...
Just A Walk in the Park!
That’s what we need! A ‘confab turbimeter’ for the major analytical telemetry! With all the turbity much of life has become caveat emptor. I, personally, would add force majeur!
Friday, August 12, 2011
Albert Camus – snuffed by the KGB?
Albert Camus – snuffed by the KGB?
Excerpt:
Excerpt:
There is now a theory, certainly credible if unproven, that the Soviets issued a warrant for the assasination of the French Writer, which led to his fatal car accident in 1960. This description makes the operation seem like something worked up for a Bond film.
The theory is based on remarks by Giovanni Catelli, an Italian academic and poet, who noted that a passage in a diary written by the celebrated Czech poet and translator Jan Zábrana, and published as a book entitled Celý život, was missing from the Italian translation. In the missing paragraph, Zábrana writes: “I heard something very strange from the mouth of a man who knew lots of things and had very informed sources. According to him, the accident that had cost Albert Camus his life in 1960 was organised by Soviet spies. They damaged a tyre on the car using a sophisticated piece of equipment that cut or made a hole in the wheel at speed...
Apocalypse Now « Glory to God for All Things
Apocalypse Now « Glory to God for All Things
Excerpt:
Various Utopias (Marxism, Nazism, Sectarian Millenarianism, etc.) are all products of a misunderstood Christian idea. They are not the inventions of Christianity – but they could hardly have originated in any other culture. The same can be said for various Dystopias (the belief in very difficult and hard times).
Excerpt:
Various Utopias (Marxism, Nazism, Sectarian Millenarianism, etc.) are all products of a misunderstood Christian idea. They are not the inventions of Christianity – but they could hardly have originated in any other culture. The same can be said for various Dystopias (the belief in very difficult and hard times).
Books, Inq. — The Epilogue: Thought for the day ...
Books, Inq. — The Epilogue: Thought for the day ...
When the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again
- Edith Hamilton, born on this date in 1867
When the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again
- Edith Hamilton, born on this date in 1867
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Anecdotal Evidence: `Homeless at Home'
Anecdotal Evidence: `Homeless at Home'
Excerpt:
Children and the mad lack proportion. Their sense of scale, of relative importance, is unreliable. An ant is a monster, an eighteen-wheeler a toy. With maturity (and sanity) comes discernment, a lens for properly sizing the world. The trick is learning not to mistake small for insignificant, or large for important. In 1763, when Boswell expresses a fear that his journal includes “too many little incidents,” Johnson replies:
“There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery, and as much happiness as possible.” ...
Excerpt:
`Homeless at Home'
“There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery, and as much happiness as possible.” ...
A Year with Rilke: For the Sake of the Whole
A Year with Rilke: For the Sake of the Whole
Excerpt:
Are there relations of the heart that embrace what is most cruel for the sake of wholeness? For the world is only world when everything is included.
Excerpt:
Closeup of the Burghers of Calais
Are there relations of the heart that embrace what is most cruel for the sake of wholeness? For the world is only world when everything is included.
Letter to Marianne von Goldschmidt-Rothschild
December 5, 1914
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
SHIRT OF FLAME: I LIVE ON AN ISLAND: CATHERINE DE HUECK DOHERTY
SHIRT OF FLAME: I LIVE ON AN ISLAND: CATHERINE DE HUECK DOHERTY
Excerpt:
One of my first and most faithful readers has been Dylan Thomas DeFreitas. Dylan is a poet and has several blogs of his own, including Dark Speech Upon the Harp that you might want to check out.
For my birthday he sent me a lovely green hardcover copy of a book by Catherine de Hueck Doherty--mystic, lover of the poor, contemplative hermit, founder of Madonna House, a training center for the lay apostolate--called I Live On An Island.
[Yeah! I have been waiting for Catherine to burst forth!]...
Excerpt:
One of my first and most faithful readers has been Dylan Thomas DeFreitas. Dylan is a poet and has several blogs of his own, including Dark Speech Upon the Harp that you might want to check out.
For my birthday he sent me a lovely green hardcover copy of a book by Catherine de Hueck Doherty--mystic, lover of the poor, contemplative hermit, founder of Madonna House, a training center for the lay apostolate--called I Live On An Island.
[Yeah! I have been waiting for Catherine to burst forth!]...
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Dabbler Verse: Marianne Moore « The Dabbler
Dabbler Verse: Marianne Moore « The Dabbler
Excerpt:
by Mme Boufflers, called Sentir avec Ardeur, which begins
Excerpt:
by Mme Boufflers, called Sentir avec Ardeur, which begins
Il faut dire en deux mots
Ce qu’on veut dire;
Les longs propos
Sont sots…
For all her apparent profligacy and luxuriance, Moore says it all en deux mots. Here’s a wonderful short poem:
A Face
‘I am not treacherous, callous, jealous, superstitious,
supercilious, venomous or absolutely hideous’:
studying and studying its expression,
exasperated desperation
though at no real impasse,
would gladly break the glass;
when love of order, ardour, uncircuitous simplicity
with an expression of inquiry, are all one needs to be!
Certain faces, a few, one or two – or one
face photographed by recollection -
to my mind, to my sight,
must remain a delight.
Monday, August 8, 2011
Why I Am Catholic: For "Ghetto Catholicism?" Not Hardly.
Why I Am Catholic: For "Ghetto Catholicism?" Not Hardly.
Excerpt:
Excerpt:
Here we are, all together, and we can behave as though there were nothing in the world but Christians. The ghetto policy consists in thinking of the Church not only as the autonomous community of salvation (which she is) but as an autonomous society in every field. So a Christian has to consider [a Catholic poet being] greater than Goethe, and have no opinion of any magazine except [Catholic magazines]; any statesman who makes his Easter duties is a great statesman, any other is automatically a bit suspect; Christian-Democratic parties are always right, Socialists always wrong, and what a pity there isn't a Catholic party.
==========================
My Response:
I catch a lot [a whole lot] of flak for always blasting communism/socialism.
Although I was raised in small Texas towns among very fundamentalist, Calvinistic family and friends, I was not formed or shaped to be so. In fact my education was European and Spanish---very liberal, existentialist, impressionistic and, thus, socialistic. It was also forged by artists. As you can well imagine the years of youth and young adulthood were mostly marked by loneliness and tempestuousness. Plus I had to deal with a lot of death early.
Those I have loved the most profoundly whether personally or as artists are liberally existentialists. Elie Wiesel, Primo Levi, Simone Weil and Albert Camus taught me well. On the other hand my patron saint is St. Therese of Lisieux. She tends to take her job very seriously and much to her praise, she won’t let me go. Into the mix quite early at the University of Texas I collided with Alexander Solzhenitsyn who keeps popping up to ground me. The old man in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch did me in and Vincent van Gogh as well as Ranier Marie Rilke saved my sanity.
To reflect on Frank, the ex-Marine, and his thought of the easy polarization we Catholics and other fundamentalists often resort to when confronting socialism, I have to battle first with myself. This is not an easy battle. After meeting Solzhenitsyn’s work I was forced to confront the real meaning of ‘red’. Blood. The confrontation for me has never been easy. Christ would not allow me one hair width in this.
Almost immediately after seeing the movie, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch, when it first came out!, I was casually having coffee at the Parisian-style restaurant on the corner at an outside table. Joining the large group around the table that day was a young British woman who was working on her doctorate at UT in aesthetics. She openly, quietly identified herself as a socialist and was a card-carrying communist. It didn’t bother her but meeting her so soon after that movie it bothered me. I was an ass; she was reflective and maddeningly reposed. I have never forgotten our exchange. To her credit we continued to be friends. After I got over the initial shock, I asked her, knowing all the results of bloody regimes and their destruction around the world, how on earth could someone so intelligent and sensitive be a communist. She calmly replied my parents are communists. They, in fact, owned a communist newspaper in Great Britain. Then she went on discussing her aesthetics. I was silenced for a long time but always the gulags of the world, the murders and thievery, the torturing, the destruction of churches, etc. haunted my spirit.
As for a Catholic party. Unfortunately that is what many countries already have and it is ‘socialist’ [i.e., Liberation Theology/ Alinsky, etc.] Again my patroness came to my aid. In The Hidden Face I was freed from the extreme of polarization. Thus I was literally saved from the ex-smoker syndrome of becoming an ‘émigré l’interieur’. This is an important point. It clarifies my thinking and beliefs.
The magnetic draw of communism lies in the deceptive ‘communal’ response to grave injustices. It began that way. If people really studied the entire lives of the people they admire and follow perhaps there would not be as much confusion. Communism/socialism is ersatz community. It is a lie. It always promises, just around that corner, but never delivers. The violence erupts from that continued denial of satisfying the greater and greater emptiness of heart, mind and spirit which is never filled by socialism.
Abbot David told me that all the aberrations in society occur because of something the Church is not facing or dealing with. Not Jesus Christ, the human beings in the Church. I see it starkly and existentially. When a man has a sword thrust through his gut he could care less about your theology. That is where we are. But it does not justify the socialism. It just means that we need to understand why we are attracted to it enough to follow it. Some of these people really are closer to Jesus in their suffering. They are my friends.
The culmination of what I continue to learn from each of them is that often we as individual Christians have forgotten what it’s all about. Christ makes it clear. When we die and stand before Him He said He will ask each of us: “Well, did you love….? But Lord when did we see Thee hungry, sick, poor, ….? And He will respond, “Whatsoever you did to the least…you did [OR NOT] to ME.” Now if each of us begins there in our hourly walk through life we cannot go astray. It is not new. I find it solidly in The Sacred Hearts.
Once I Was A Clever Boy: Indulgence of the Portiuncula
Once I Was A Clever Boy: Indulgence of the Portiuncula
Excerpt:
Today, if one fulfills the conditions, the faithful can gain the plenary indulgence of the Portiuncula (or Porziuncola) - the chapel of Our Lady of the Angels in Assisi which St Francis started to repair in fulfilment of the Divine command to "rebuild my church."
Excerpt:
Today, if one fulfills the conditions, the faithful can gain the plenary indulgence of the Portiuncula (or Porziuncola) - the chapel of Our Lady of the Angels in Assisi which St Francis started to repair in fulfilment of the Divine command to "rebuild my church."
Abbey-Roads: Even Peter faltered.
Abbey-Roads: Even Peter faltered.
"Sometimes it happens that despite their best efforts, some souls remain imperfect because it would be to their spiritual detriment to believe they are virtuous or to have others agree that they are." - My Sister, St. Therese
.
"You must never believe when you do not practice virtue that it is due to some natural cause such as illness, time, or grief. You must draw a great lesson in humility from it and take your place among the little souls, since you are able to practice virtue only in such a feeble manner. What is necessary for you now is not to practice heroic virtues but to acquire humility. For that, your victories must of necessity always be mixed with failures, so that you cannot take any pleasure in thinking of them." - Celine, Sister and Witness to St. Therese of the Child Jesus.
"Sometimes it happens that despite their best efforts, some souls remain imperfect because it would be to their spiritual detriment to believe they are virtuous or to have others agree that they are." - My Sister, St. Therese
.
"You must never believe when you do not practice virtue that it is due to some natural cause such as illness, time, or grief. You must draw a great lesson in humility from it and take your place among the little souls, since you are able to practice virtue only in such a feeble manner. What is necessary for you now is not to practice heroic virtues but to acquire humility. For that, your victories must of necessity always be mixed with failures, so that you cannot take any pleasure in thinking of them." - Celine, Sister and Witness to St. Therese of the Child Jesus.
John Henry Newman: The Prophet Elisha and the Comfortable Christian Doctrine of the Communion of Saints « Enlarging the Heart
John Henry Newman: The Prophet Elisha and the Comfortable Christian Doctrine of the Communion of Saints « Enlarging the Heart
Excerpt:
Excerpt:
He prayed, and said, Lord, I pray Thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.
How well does this vision correspond to that blessed privilege which, as the Apostle assures us, is conferred upon us Christians:
Ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the Living God, the heavenly Jerusalem,
and to an innumerable company of Angels, to the general assembly and Church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all,
and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant,
and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel!...
Ready When You Are, C.B.: In a Lonely Place by Dorothy Hughes
Ready When You Are, C.B.: In a Lonely Place by Dorothy Hughes
Excerpt:
In 1947, an excellent thriller needed only four characters: two women, one a respectable policeman's wife the other a woman of questionable character, and two men, one a police detective the other a serial killer. With these four characters and a small supporting cast, Dorothy Hughes created an excellent noir thriller In A Lonely Place that can more than hold its own against any of her male contemporaries. I'd argue it can hold it's own against anyone writing crime novels today, as well, and it may end up one of my top ten favorite reads this year.
Excerpt:
In 1947, an excellent thriller needed only four characters: two women, one a respectable policeman's wife the other a woman of questionable character, and two men, one a police detective the other a serial killer. With these four characters and a small supporting cast, Dorothy Hughes created an excellent noir thriller In A Lonely Place that can more than hold its own against any of her male contemporaries. I'd argue it can hold it's own against anyone writing crime novels today, as well, and it may end up one of my top ten favorite reads this year.
The Los Angelos of In a Lonely Place is in the grip of a serial killer, a strangler who has murdered one woman every 30 days for the past six months, when Dickson "Dix" Steele decides to contact his old war buddy Brub Nicolai. The two have lost contact since the war ended and they each returned from England. Brub is married now--his wife Sylvia is nervous about the strangler and worried for her police detective husband who has been working the case for months. Dix tolerates Sylvia while milking Brub for details about the strangler case claiming they will help him with the detective novel he is writing, secretly excited by the thrill of being so close to the police officers who are hunting him...
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Dymphna's Road: Man of Sorrows
Dymphna's Road: Man of Sorrows
Rejected, despised, a Man of Sorrow and acquainted with grief.....
My response: So many times I meet Jesus where He is least expected. He is everywhere if we have hearts that see. Today He visited His Temple and was unwelcome. At first light they had been turned out of the shelter. The tired and beaten man retreated to the grassy knoll for the cold concrete of the shelter the night before made it impossible to sleep. Too, he had not eaten in days. Someone kind took him to get something to eat. While there two college boys harrassed him mockingly while he tried to force his stomach to accept food after so long. I am grateful to have met both the one who took him to get food and the homeless young man, who BTW was 33. What troubled me was that two young men had beaten him the night before because he did not have a match. His face [Face] was bruised and swollen.
And Jesus asked: "When did we see Thee hungry, homeless, sick, lonely...?" How many of those 'Faces' will we meet then?
Rejected, despised, a Man of Sorrow and acquainted with grief.....
My response: So many times I meet Jesus where He is least expected. He is everywhere if we have hearts that see. Today He visited His Temple and was unwelcome. At first light they had been turned out of the shelter. The tired and beaten man retreated to the grassy knoll for the cold concrete of the shelter the night before made it impossible to sleep. Too, he had not eaten in days. Someone kind took him to get something to eat. While there two college boys harrassed him mockingly while he tried to force his stomach to accept food after so long. I am grateful to have met both the one who took him to get food and the homeless young man, who BTW was 33. What troubled me was that two young men had beaten him the night before because he did not have a match. His face [Face] was bruised and swollen.
And Jesus asked: "When did we see Thee hungry, homeless, sick, lonely...?" How many of those 'Faces' will we meet then?
Dolce Bellezza: Tout Sweet by Karen Wheeler
Dolce Bellezza: Tout Sweet by Karen Wheeler
Excerpt:
....how she left her life of fashion in London to begin a "new life in France."
Excerpt:
....how she left her life of fashion in London to begin a "new life in France."
"Why would someone do that?" one might wonder, and Karen quickly explains in the opening pages of her book: "To be honest, my life in London had started to seem very empty. I had wardrobes crammed with "It" bags and "must-have" shoes, most of them gifts from designers to thank me for articles I'd written, and I had cupboards full of free beauty products. I had spent most of my life so far focused on work and chasing material possessions. Now I had them in abundance and yet, at thirty-five, I was unhappy. There had to be more to life, I decided, than a stockpile of sought-after accessories."
Anecdotal Evidence: `An Impossibly Small Space'
Anecdotal Evidence: `An Impossibly Small Space'
Excerpt:
On Friday, the day I read Toretta’s post, I happened upon a contemporary poet new to me, Joseph Harrison, author of Someone Else’s Name (2004) and Identity Theft (2008). In “On Rereading Some Lines of Poetry,” a rare poem about poetry that isn’t navel-gazing, he reminds us of what Michael Oakeshott writes in “The Voice of Poetry in the Conversation of Mankind”: “It is with conversation as with gambling, its significance lies neither in winning nor in losing, but in wagering.” He reminds us why we started reading poetry in the first place:
“I must believe you see these shadowed lines
Lead back to other lines, and understand
The heart that’s faithful to its origins
Sits like an open book, for all to read
Who care to, closely, word by chosen word.
Or do the words choose us? These words chose me
And made me who I am. So let the lines
That speak most deeply to your inmost thoughts
Shine on you like the moon, and shape your soul.”
Excerpt:
On Friday, the day I read Toretta’s post, I happened upon a contemporary poet new to me, Joseph Harrison, author of Someone Else’s Name (2004) and Identity Theft (2008). In “On Rereading Some Lines of Poetry,” a rare poem about poetry that isn’t navel-gazing, he reminds us of what Michael Oakeshott writes in “The Voice of Poetry in the Conversation of Mankind”: “It is with conversation as with gambling, its significance lies neither in winning nor in losing, but in wagering.” He reminds us why we started reading poetry in the first place:
“I must believe you see these shadowed lines
Lead back to other lines, and understand
The heart that’s faithful to its origins
Sits like an open book, for all to read
Who care to, closely, word by chosen word.
Or do the words choose us? These words chose me
And made me who I am. So let the lines
That speak most deeply to your inmost thoughts
Shine on you like the moon, and shape your soul.”
Dear Timothy
I think of you today, Timothy. I know your Mom is praying for you and so am I. There are too many Timothy sons in need of solace, tenderness, care and protection. Sometimes life deals blows that are too great for just one person to carry. We need others to carry those bundles. So if anyone sees Tim out there today. Take care of him for Me.
Rambling Follower: Lessons from "the Beasts" at the Dog Park
Rambling Follower: Lessons from "the Beasts" at the Dog Park
Excerpt:
Today after lunch my husband and I took our two-year-old puggle to the dog park. An older woman arrived with her chihuahua. Other than our two dogs, the park was empty. It's one of those hot days with a just a slight breeze, where people tend to sit at the park without talking. But my husband and I, both former journalists, managed to strike up a conversation.
Since then, Chuck Norris has been terrified of all other dogs. He has trouble leaving Alma's side. Alma is disabled; she walks with a cane and told me she often falls. Chuck stays by her side no matter what.
Alma doesn't want this tiny dog to feel the burden of protecting her.,,
We all can see how a vicious attack could make a dog wary of other dogs. But I wonder how easily we can see how a difficult childhood, a painful marriage, or a broken heart can make our neighbors wary to trust again.
I wonder if I am as gentle with the people I encounter as Alma is with the tiny little creature she cares for. I wonder if God sends us these creatures, not only so we can care for them, but also to teach us how to love one another.
Excerpt:
- But now ask the beasts to teach you, and the birds of the air to tell you;
- Or the reptiles on earth to instruct you, and the fish of the sea to inform you.
- Which of all these does not know that the hand of God has done this?
- In his hand is the soul of every living thing, and the life breath of all mankind.
Since then, Chuck Norris has been terrified of all other dogs. He has trouble leaving Alma's side. Alma is disabled; she walks with a cane and told me she often falls. Chuck stays by her side no matter what.
Alma doesn't want this tiny dog to feel the burden of protecting her.,,
We all can see how a vicious attack could make a dog wary of other dogs. But I wonder how easily we can see how a difficult childhood, a painful marriage, or a broken heart can make our neighbors wary to trust again.
I wonder if I am as gentle with the people I encounter as Alma is with the tiny little creature she cares for. I wonder if God sends us these creatures, not only so we can care for them, but also to teach us how to love one another.
A Year with Rilke: Fearful of the New
A Year with Rilke: Fearful of the New
The tendency of people to be fearful of those experiences they call apparitions or assign to the "spirit world", including death, has done infinite harm to life. All these things so naturally related to us have been driven away through our daily resistance to them, to the point where our capacity to sense them has atrophied. To say nothing of God. Fear of the unexplainable has not only impoverished our inner lives, but also diminished relations between people; these have been dragged, so to speak, from the river of infinite possibilities and stuck on the dry bank where nothing happens...
The tendency of people to be fearful of those experiences they call apparitions or assign to the "spirit world", including death, has done infinite harm to life. All these things so naturally related to us have been driven away through our daily resistance to them, to the point where our capacity to sense them has atrophied. To say nothing of God. Fear of the unexplainable has not only impoverished our inner lives, but also diminished relations between people; these have been dragged, so to speak, from the river of infinite possibilities and stuck on the dry bank where nothing happens...
Saturday, August 6, 2011
"French Anne Frank" Diary Enthralls France - CBS News
"French Anne Frank" Diary Enthralls France - CBS News
Excerpt:
Oct. 10, 1943: On the reason she recounts her daily life: "I have a duty to accomplish by writing because people must know. Each hour of the day the painful experience is repeated, that of noticing that others don't know, that they don't even imagine the suffering of others and the evil that some inflict on others."
Excerpt:
Oct. 10, 1943: On the reason she recounts her daily life: "I have a duty to accomplish by writing because people must know. Each hour of the day the painful experience is repeated, that of noticing that others don't know, that they don't even imagine the suffering of others and the evil that some inflict on others."
Vegetable!
I was headed for the Weather Channel forecast last night when, passing the channel airing Reba's sitcom, I noticed they were fighting over the daughter smoking and Reba snatched it out of her mouth. I am certainly not one who proposes one smoke. After Reba's tirade the daughter meekly retorted, "...but it's a vegetable!" I had to laugh.
The Windhover, by Gerard Manley Hopkins
The Windhover, by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Excerpt:
I caught this morning
Morning's minion, kingdom of daylight's dauphin,
Dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding...
... *The Windhover, by Gerard Manley Hopkins*. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) (Posted at Books Inq...)
Excerpt:
I caught this morning
Morning's minion, kingdom of daylight's dauphin,
Dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding...
... *The Windhover, by Gerard Manley Hopkins*. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) (Posted at Books Inq...)
Friday, August 5, 2011
¡Très bien!: II: Update
¡Très bien!
"I must have ended up on the wrong planet.
Everything here is so strange." ~ Sigbjørn Obstfelder, Norwegian poet
……………………………………………
Without squeamish impress, a sense of malakos invades
Savoy’s aire, as shell-less trailers transverse tooled blades
Crossed logs, walks, outdoor tablets, pavement to grass,
Oddly, then, to plate and fine pate, washed in wine glass.
Photo by Kathryn Olmstead: A slug slips into a pool of beer in Kathryn Olmstead’s garden.
Tiny bravery now o’er heated tins of imported lagers
Certainly not for sunning or mirroring night beggars
Dignified inclinations surge tastefully in the gardens
Brews of precious delighting preferred in toasty tins.
! Très bien! Sinfully plied as ‘slug’ yet ! Ah, escargot!
Through long dynastic battles, steeped in slime, so slow
Tasty gastropods creep in sleep, en marche along the stones
Tiny silent marauders of the bottom of the damp dark zones.
Through long dynastic battles, steeped in slime, so slow
Tasty gastropods creep in sleep, en marche along the stones
Tiny silent marauders of the bottom of the damp dark zones.
~July 27, 2011
On the Nature of Offense
I never began to like any of the characters; they really didn't live at all. So I discarded the play at once. The characters were so purely cardboard. I was intentionally—for the only time, I think—trying to make a point, an explicit point, that these were nasty people and I disapproved of them. And therefore they didn't begin to live. Whereas in other plays of mine every single character, even a bastard like Goldberg in The Birthday Party, I care for." ~interview with Harold Pinter
"Many people are offended by slugs and snails….” So it is quizzical that I am not.
In My Garden
I love the snails and slugs of my garden. They just keep going like that battery bunny. I find them quite fascinating actually. Even hysterical. I can enter a trance instantaneously watching them inch along and suddenly I am startled to find them going over the edge into the street. A momentary twinge inside urges me to run and grab each one and posit them safely across the road but I never do.
These creatures of the night emerge en masse--- walking among them akin to the delicate balancing and maneuvering through a minefield. They pop out of crevices of the wall and the walk. As a single character it would be insane for me to plop a name on one. On second thought, Slimy Slug does come to mind.
Slugs have piqued my interest since I discovered a picture of a slug headed for a plate of Budweiser. The little guy braved not only a hot sun, risking instant death by dessication, but, like a cat on a hot tin roof, the undulating force transversed the hot aluminum plate’s metal surfaced edge. He met his reward: a cool one. Gotta hand it to him! Nothing would keep him from his beer on a hot, sunny afternoon---not even the fear of a sizzled death!
Earwigs and bees love beer, too, rising in my estimation of their character. It’s the beer rage of these tiny creatures that places me under their spell. As a former science teacher I was forced to get the bottom of this phenomenon, and soon recognized the denuding nature of the scientific bent for ‘just the facts, ma’am.’ All was not lost though. Good thing, too, for I was beginning to endure waves of remorse for my scientific past and what horrors I may have inflicted on unsuspecting teens’ capacity for the creative bent. Great mysteries still remain.
“ According to a team of University of California, Berkeley researchers, it is not exactly the beer that attracts insects, but rather the carbon dioxide in the beer. Flies and other insects, the Berkeley scientists have discovered, have special taste receptors that are sensitive to carbon dioxide -- the stuff that puts the fizz in beer.
It's one or perhaps the only taste receptor discovered in addition to the five that we humans and other mammals have. We have receptors for sweet, sour, bitter, salty and savory. “(1)
They like their fizz too!
The poor guys certainly get a bad rap. “Cecil Adams, a newspaper columnist, stated in his column, "slugs are a leading cause of death in Seattle, owing to the effect that so many people are grossed out of existence" (2).” Of course, they can’t directly cause death.
The young Shep’s article, “The Slimy, yet Special Slug,” further relieved any past indiscretions I feared of ‘bombing creativity in the bud.” He reminds me, “Slugs are members of the kingdom Animalia, thus they are eukaryotic, multi-cellar, and heterotrophic.” This highly amuses me since so am I. Like me these gastropods are minus an outer shell. Shep states that “the slug's body is a very interesting system that allows the organism to thrive in its environment…The slug is an excellent example of an organism that has been able to successfully adapt for survival…Slugs have an important place in the ecosystem of the world. Most slugs are herbivores, eating fungi, lichens, green plants, shoots, roots, leaves, fruits, vegetables, and flowers. “ It is noteworthy again that so do I.
“Slugs are also known for being scavengers; eating decaying vegetation, animal feces, and carrion. ( Here I draw the line in the sand refusing to establish a culinary similarity.)
“Slugs are not as much in danger of being prey as other organisms are. Many potential predators of the slug do not eat it … predators do, however, exist. They include the hedgehog, badger, shrew, mole, mouse, frog, toad, snake, carnivorous beetle, some birds, and some other mammals.”
“Ecologist Tina Teearu states, "Each and every being on earth has its place (a 'niche') in the ecosystem and together it works". If the slug was to suddenly disappear, the ecosystems and food webs that contained the slug would be drastically affected…"nutrients would be locked up in dead organisms longer and unavailable to living organisms [without the slug's presence]." This "locking up of nutrients" would effect the fertileness of soil. Fertile soil is very important to human existence, as Tina Teearu states, "at the end of the end, absolutely everything we humans eat can be tracked back to soil." While gardeners and farmers may think that the disappearance of slugs would improve their gardens and crops from being destroyed by the pesky slug, they are wrong. If slugs were to become extinct, soils would be less fertile.. Currently the slug is being studied at the University of Washington.” (3)
1. http://greenanswers.com/q/35659/animals-wildlife/behavior/what-creatures-other-slugs-and-snails-are-
2. Chicago Reader "Dear Cecil," activated through America Online's "Straight Dope," 1988-1997.
3. Shep, “The Slimy, yet Special Slug,”
Photo: " Garden slugs prefer Budweiser over imported brand", Kathryn Olmstead
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