If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "thank you," that would suffice.
December 25, 2008
Merry Merry, Happy Happy
If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "thank you," that would suffice.
December 21, 2008
The Pickwick Papers
Christmas was close at hand, in all his bluff and hearty honesty; it was the season of hospitality, merriment, and open-heartedness; the old year was preparing, like an ancient philosopher, to call his friends around him, and amidst the sound of feasting and revelry to pass gently and calmly away.
December 18, 2008
The Immortal Words of Linus from "A Charlie Brown Christmas"
(when handed his script,from Lucy)
I can't memorize these lines! This is ridiculous... I can't memorize something like this so quickly! Why should I be put through this agony? Give me one good reason why I should memorize this.
I can't memorize these lines! This is ridiculous... I can't memorize something like this so quickly! Why should I be put through this agony? Give me one good reason why I should memorize this.
December 3, 2008
in the words of Boris
Snow swept over the earth,
Swept it from end to end.
The candle on the table burned,
The candle burned.
Like swarms of summer midges
Drawn to the flame
The snowflakes
Flocked to the window.
The driven snow drew circles and arrowa
On the window pane.
The candle on the table burned,
The candle burned.
Swept it from end to end.
The candle on the table burned,
The candle burned.
Like swarms of summer midges
Drawn to the flame
The snowflakes
Flocked to the window.
The driven snow drew circles and arrowa
On the window pane.
The candle on the table burned,
The candle burned.
November 25, 2008
Old Bose lay down on the mat before the door, and the cat had the warm hearth all to herself. If any late wanderer had looked in at midnight, he would have seen the fire blazing up again, and in the cheerful glow the old cat blinking her yellow eyes, as she sat bolt upright beside the spinning whell, like some sort of household goblin guarding the children while they slept.
L.M. Alcott
L.M. Alcott
November 18, 2008
NE Wisdom
it's like Jung says, "The unconscious is revealed through the imagery of our dreams, which express our innermost fears and our desires."
Jung said that?
Yeah, I think it was Jung. Or maybe Vincent Price.
Jung said that?
Yeah, I think it was Jung. Or maybe Vincent Price.
November 4, 2008
something realized
I, TOO, SING AMERICA,
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They sent me to eat in the kitchen
When company came,
But I laughed,
And ate well,
And grew strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--
I, too, am America.
Langston Hughes (with an edit or two)
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They sent me to eat in the kitchen
When company came,
But I laughed,
And ate well,
And grew strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--
I, too, am America.
Langston Hughes (with an edit or two)
November 2, 2008
Sandy Denny
The oak and weed together rise,
Along the common ground.
The mare and stallion light and dark
Have thunder in their sound.
The rainbow sign, the blended flower
Still have my heart in thrall.
The quiet joys of brotherhood,
And love is lord of all.
congratulations my men of steely resolve! Come what may in the weeks to come,
I am proud of you!
Along the common ground.
The mare and stallion light and dark
Have thunder in their sound.
The rainbow sign, the blended flower
Still have my heart in thrall.
The quiet joys of brotherhood,
And love is lord of all.
congratulations my men of steely resolve! Come what may in the weeks to come,
I am proud of you!
October 26, 2008
October 24, 2008
I have a thousand brilliant lies
For the question:
How are you?
I have a thousand brilliant lies
For the question:
What is God?
If you think that the Truth can be known
From words,
If you think that the Sun and the Ocean
Can pass through that tiny opening
Called the mouth,
O someone should start laughing!
Someone should start wildly Laughing –Now!!
Hafiz
For the question:
How are you?
I have a thousand brilliant lies
For the question:
What is God?
If you think that the Truth can be known
From words,
If you think that the Sun and the Ocean
Can pass through that tiny opening
Called the mouth,
O someone should start laughing!
Someone should start wildly Laughing –Now!!
Hafiz
September 26, 2008
thoughts of the November to come
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.
O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!
Langston Hughes
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.
O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!
Langston Hughes
September 8, 2008
August 30, 2008
August 24, 2008
Going Somewhere"
My science-friend, my noblest woman-friend,
(Now buried in an English grave--and this a memory-leaf for her dear sake,)
Ended our talk--"The sum, concluding all we know of old or modern
learning, intuitions deep,
"Of all Geologies--Histories--of all Astronomy--of Evolution,
Metaphysics all,
"Is, that we all are onward, onward, speeding slowly, surely bettering,
"Life, life an endless march, an endless army, (no halt, but it is
duly over,)
"The world, the race, the soul--in space and time the universes,
"All bound as is befitting each--all surely going somewhere."
Walt Whitman
My science-friend, my noblest woman-friend,
(Now buried in an English grave--and this a memory-leaf for her dear sake,)
Ended our talk--"The sum, concluding all we know of old or modern
learning, intuitions deep,
"Of all Geologies--Histories--of all Astronomy--of Evolution,
Metaphysics all,
"Is, that we all are onward, onward, speeding slowly, surely bettering,
"Life, life an endless march, an endless army, (no halt, but it is
duly over,)
"The world, the race, the soul--in space and time the universes,
"All bound as is befitting each--all surely going somewhere."
Walt Whitman
August 7, 2008
August 4, 2008
what is making me cry
I got one of those email questionaires and my daft answers made the sender recommend I resume therapy, including:
what is currently making you laugh: the last audition notice I got - to "improv a turkey" for a national commercial -- can you hear them pounding the nails in my career's coffin
what is currently making you think: the resounding question, rattling around in my head, of; "WTF am I doing?!!!"
what is under your bed: my dog and her short boyfriend, doing heavens knows
what is currently making you sigh: my brother's successful morphene withdrawal (with relief)
what is currently making you cry: Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations, Nimrod Opus (but in a good way)
what is currently making you laugh: the last audition notice I got - to "improv a turkey" for a national commercial -- can you hear them pounding the nails in my career's coffin
what is currently making you think: the resounding question, rattling around in my head, of; "WTF am I doing?!!!"
what is under your bed: my dog and her short boyfriend, doing heavens knows
what is currently making you sigh: my brother's successful morphene withdrawal (with relief)
what is currently making you cry: Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations, Nimrod Opus (but in a good way)
August 3, 2008
July 24, 2008
Wayfarer,
Why not rest your tired body?
Lean back and close your eyes.
Come morning
I will kneel by your side and feed you.
I will so gently
Spread open your mouth
And let you taste something of my
Sacred mind and life.
Surely
There is something wrong
With your ideas of
God
O, surely there is something wrong
With your ideas of
God
If you think
Our Beloved would not be so
Tender.
Hafiz
Why not rest your tired body?
Lean back and close your eyes.
Come morning
I will kneel by your side and feed you.
I will so gently
Spread open your mouth
And let you taste something of my
Sacred mind and life.
Surely
There is something wrong
With your ideas of
God
O, surely there is something wrong
With your ideas of
God
If you think
Our Beloved would not be so
Tender.
Hafiz
July 23, 2008
June 13, 2008
May 21, 2008
Mockingbird
Mockingbirds are bad-ass.
Mockingbirds are the MC's of the animal kingdom--
they listen, and mimic, and remix what they like,
they rock the mic.
Outside my window every morning
I can hear them sing
the sounds of the car alarms
like they were songs of spring.
I mean: if you can talk it,
a mockingbird can squawk it.
So check it:
I'm gonna catch mockingbirds.
I'm gonna trap mockingbirds, all across the nation
and put them gently into mason jars
like mockingbird Molotov cocktails.
And as I drive through a neighborhood, say,
where people gotta lotta
I'll take a mockingbird I caught in a neighborhood
where folks ain't got nada
and just let it go, y'know--
Up goes the bird, out come the words:
"Juanito! Juanito! Vente a comer, mi hijo!!"
I'm gonna be the Johnny Appleseed of sounds.
Cruising random interstates and city streets,
rockin' a drop-top Cadillac with a big back seat,
packing like thirteen brown paper Wal-Mart bags
full of loaded mockingbirds.
And I'll get everybody.
I'll get the nitwit on the network news, saying:
"We'll be back in a moment with more on the crisis."
I'll get some asshole at a watering hole
asking what brand the ice is.
I'll get that lady at the laundromat
who always seems to know what being nice is.
I'll get your postman making dinner plans.
I'll get the last time you lied.
I'll get: "Honey, just give me the frikkin' T.V. Guide"
I'll get a lonely little sentence some real bad judgment in it:
"Yeah, I guess you could come inside--
but only for a minute."
I’ll get an ESL class in Chinatown, learning:
"It's raining, it's pouring..."
I'll put a mockingbird on a late-night train
just to get an old man snoring.
I'll get your ex-lover wishing someone else good morning.
Cuz I'll get everyone's good mornings,
I don't care how you make 'em:
Aloha. Konnichiwa. Shalom. A salaam malaikum.
I'll get uptown gurus, downtown teachers,
broke-ass artists, and dealers, and Filipino preachers.
Leaf blowers, bartenders, boob job doctors,
hooligans, garbagemen, your local Congressman
and the spotlight guys in the overhead helicopters.
Everybody gets heard, everybody gets this
one honest mockingbird
as a witness.
And I'm on this. I'm on this 'til the whole thing spreads
with chat rooms and copycats and moms, maybe,
tucking kids into bed, singing: "Hush little baby, don't say a word--
wait for the man with the mockingbirds."
And then come the news crews, and the man-on-the-street interviews
and the letters to the editor--everybody asking:
"Just who is responsible for this citywide,
nationwide, mockingbird cacophony?"
And somebody's finally gonna tip the city council
and they'll offer me a key to the city,
a gold-plated, over-sized key to the city,
and that's all I need, cuz if I get that--I can unlock the air.
I'll listen for what's missing--
and I'll put it there.
Rives
and if you haven't checked out
http://www.TED.org
do so
now
Mockingbirds are the MC's of the animal kingdom--
they listen, and mimic, and remix what they like,
they rock the mic.
Outside my window every morning
I can hear them sing
the sounds of the car alarms
like they were songs of spring.
I mean: if you can talk it,
a mockingbird can squawk it.
So check it:
I'm gonna catch mockingbirds.
I'm gonna trap mockingbirds, all across the nation
and put them gently into mason jars
like mockingbird Molotov cocktails.
And as I drive through a neighborhood, say,
where people gotta lotta
I'll take a mockingbird I caught in a neighborhood
where folks ain't got nada
and just let it go, y'know--
Up goes the bird, out come the words:
"Juanito! Juanito! Vente a comer, mi hijo!!"
I'm gonna be the Johnny Appleseed of sounds.
Cruising random interstates and city streets,
rockin' a drop-top Cadillac with a big back seat,
packing like thirteen brown paper Wal-Mart bags
full of loaded mockingbirds.
And I'll get everybody.
I'll get the nitwit on the network news, saying:
"We'll be back in a moment with more on the crisis."
I'll get some asshole at a watering hole
asking what brand the ice is.
I'll get that lady at the laundromat
who always seems to know what being nice is.
I'll get your postman making dinner plans.
I'll get the last time you lied.
I'll get: "Honey, just give me the frikkin' T.V. Guide"
I'll get a lonely little sentence some real bad judgment in it:
"Yeah, I guess you could come inside--
but only for a minute."
I’ll get an ESL class in Chinatown, learning:
"It's raining, it's pouring..."
I'll put a mockingbird on a late-night train
just to get an old man snoring.
I'll get your ex-lover wishing someone else good morning.
Cuz I'll get everyone's good mornings,
I don't care how you make 'em:
Aloha. Konnichiwa. Shalom. A salaam malaikum.
I'll get uptown gurus, downtown teachers,
broke-ass artists, and dealers, and Filipino preachers.
Leaf blowers, bartenders, boob job doctors,
hooligans, garbagemen, your local Congressman
and the spotlight guys in the overhead helicopters.
Everybody gets heard, everybody gets this
one honest mockingbird
as a witness.
And I'm on this. I'm on this 'til the whole thing spreads
with chat rooms and copycats and moms, maybe,
tucking kids into bed, singing: "Hush little baby, don't say a word--
wait for the man with the mockingbirds."
And then come the news crews, and the man-on-the-street interviews
and the letters to the editor--everybody asking:
"Just who is responsible for this citywide,
nationwide, mockingbird cacophony?"
And somebody's finally gonna tip the city council
and they'll offer me a key to the city,
a gold-plated, over-sized key to the city,
and that's all I need, cuz if I get that--I can unlock the air.
I'll listen for what's missing--
and I'll put it there.
Rives
and if you haven't checked out
http://www.TED.org
do so
now
May 16, 2008
May 14, 2008
my horoscope this week
As part of the arrangement your soul entered into before you were born, you were given the mission to accomplish five specific miracles. Three of these you have not yet even guessed the nature of. Why? For one thing, none of your elders or teachers ever named them for you while you were growing up. Secondly, you have been overly timid about imagining what you're capable of. That's the bad news. The good news is that you're very close to the mystery spot where one of those undiscovered dreams has been moldering.
The Optomist
As he turned he caught the feeling,
And he smiled as he walked down the road.
All my days they are filled with meaning,
But I have yet to fathom the code.
Next year I'm coming back, I'll see you later.
It takes longer when you are far away.
Sandy Denny
And he smiled as he walked down the road.
All my days they are filled with meaning,
But I have yet to fathom the code.
Next year I'm coming back, I'll see you later.
It takes longer when you are far away.
Sandy Denny
May 8, 2008
April 26, 2008
Dade yesterday
talked to my Dad on the PHONE yesterday -- just the second time since his surgery, BUT this first since he got the new "ear" installed...
his transformed voice on the phone was one JOYFUL NOISE!!! The music has returned!!!
April 25, 2008
shift happens
And apparently it is happening to Holst's "Planets - Mars"
watch:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=FqfunyCeU5g
My poor archaic brain was outwitted by my mobile LONG ago...
watch:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=FqfunyCeU5g
My poor archaic brain was outwitted by my mobile LONG ago...
April 19, 2008
My father - party animal
My mother is back with the ancestors for the next couple weeks, and so my father is on his own. He wrote me the following in an email today.
"I've warned her (mother) that if she calls during one of the wild parties
I'm planning with several of my girlfriends, I won't appreciate it if
her call comes in during the string quartet recital or the Schopenhauer
lecture."
I think the two of us enjoyed this comment for very different reasons.
yep, he's a party animal...
this also made me giggle
I should preface by reminding you that my father is having his latest hearing device "installed" in the near future. If it doesn't work, the implant is his next step...
"I must also learn about using the Bluetooth feature on my
cellphone and coordinate with the navigator in my Prius. It will all be
voice activated and supposedly very easy and very safe to use even when
driving along at breakneck speeds. In the Prius, that means 35 mph"
the picture that comes to my mind is the navigator's feminine, slightly condescending voice, reacting to his now routinely loud voice
prius "speak more quietly please"
dad "RIGHT OR LEFT?!"
prius "please speak more quietly, so I can understand you"
dad "RIGHT OR LEFT?!"
prius "PIPE DOWN!! YOU'RE BADGERING ME!!!"
(maybe my mother should just program her voice directly into it)
"I've warned her (mother) that if she calls during one of the wild parties
I'm planning with several of my girlfriends, I won't appreciate it if
her call comes in during the string quartet recital or the Schopenhauer
lecture."
I think the two of us enjoyed this comment for very different reasons.
yep, he's a party animal...
this also made me giggle
I should preface by reminding you that my father is having his latest hearing device "installed" in the near future. If it doesn't work, the implant is his next step...
"I must also learn about using the Bluetooth feature on my
cellphone and coordinate with the navigator in my Prius. It will all be
voice activated and supposedly very easy and very safe to use even when
driving along at breakneck speeds. In the Prius, that means 35 mph"
the picture that comes to my mind is the navigator's feminine, slightly condescending voice, reacting to his now routinely loud voice
prius "speak more quietly please"
dad "RIGHT OR LEFT?!"
prius "please speak more quietly, so I can understand you"
dad "RIGHT OR LEFT?!"
prius "PIPE DOWN!! YOU'RE BADGERING ME!!!"
(maybe my mother should just program her voice directly into it)
April 17, 2008
head-banging anyone?
My cousin Mike is on tour just at the moment and will be coming my way next weekend. I'm not calling ahead to get on the list; just going to hang out by the speaker until he recognizes someone who watched him squirt milk though his nose as a kid, and see what happens...
does that make me evil?
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