|
|
 3 Sep 2006 @ 10:02
You are the light,
You are the refuge,
There is no place to take shelter but yourself.
---Inscription over the Buddha's ashes
Let us be poised, and wise, and our own, today.
---Ralph Waldo Emerson
The morning after the storm
the melons alone
know nothing of it.
---Sodo
Patricia McDonough, a professional photographer with a fisheye lens, made this picture from her apartment’s living room within minutes of the first airliner’s impact.
You have to grit your teeth just to get through Garrison Keillor's gripping review this morning of a new book called Watching The World Change: The Stories Behind The Images Of 9/11. I'm trying to imagine what reading the book would be like. Here is Garrison, taking you through it~~~
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The New York Times
September 3, 2006
Bearing Witness
By GARRISON KEILLOR
It was a perfect late-summer day in New York, the sort of day when a person feels terribly lucky to be in the city. A man named Pavel Hlava was showing his brother Josef around town and raised his video camera toward the World Trade Center just in time to catch a bright object flashing in the sky and then a puff of smoke from the north face of the north tower. A French filmmaker, Jules Naudet, who was making a documentary about firefighters, was with a fire truck responding to a gas leak at Lispenard and Church Streets downtown when he heard the roar of a jet engine and raised his camera to catch the plane too. And so did two Webcams from an apartment window in Brooklyn. It was 8:46 a.m. on the 11th of September, 2001. At 8:49 a.m., CNN went live with a shot of the towers from a camera on the West Side. The second plane hit the south tower at 9:03, and by that time dozens of cameras were on the scene, aiming upward. More >
|
|
|
|
 3 Jun 2006 @ 08:31
The important thing is to do, and nothing else; be what it may.
---Pablo Picasso
You yourself are time---your body, your mind, the objects around you. Plunge into the river of time and swim, instead of standing on the banks and noting the course of the currents.
---Philip Kapleau
Who whispered, souls have shapes
So has the wind, I say.
But I don't know.
I only feel things blow.
---Stanley Kunitz
John and Grace Tagliabue were photographed in the Muskie Garden at Bates College in 1998 by Phyllis Graber Jensen, shortly before their move to Providence, R.I. John died on May 31.
You can, you do...prepare---sometimes for years---for the last word, the final departure...of a friend, a loved one. But we're never really ready when it comes. Still the shock. The welling up, unexpected sobbing. Breaking down...alone or with a comforting hand upon one's shoulder. It cannot be contained. The grief.
And so it came...yesterday afternoon, while I was down at the garden, the phone call's recorded message telling me John Tagliabue is gone.
Exactly a month ago his last letter arrived announcing the "big operation" would be "tomorrow morning, might take 4 - 7 hours!!" Nearly 83, John had agreed to extreme measures to remove part of a pancreas gone bad. There were complications...and another surgery...and then the final morphine drip. With wife and 2 daughters in the room reading him his poems, John gave us the slip and danced lightly further into the fantastic. May I share with you just a few of the last things he wrote?
++++++++++++++++++++ More >
|
|
|
|
 12 Mar 2006 @ 22:28
The picture is of John Tagliabue in the full flight of reading, at Bates College Reunion '98.
Now, what is poetry? If you say it is simply a matter of words, I will say a good poet gets rid of words. If you say it is simply a matter of meaning, I will say a good poet gets rid of meaning. "But," you ask, "without words and without meaning, where is the poetry?" To this I reply, "Get rid of words and get rid of meaning, and still there is poetry."
---Yang Wan-Li
Poetry, to the poet, is the most rewarding work in the world. A good poem is a contribution to reality. The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it. A good poem helps to change the shape and significance of the universe, helps to extend everyone's knowledge of himself, and the world around him...
---Dylan Thomas
If there is any absolute, it is never more than this one, you, this instant, in this action.
---Charles Olson
I wonder whether friend and mentor, John Tagliabue, would agree with fellow poet Olson on that notion. I never try to corner a poet about the Absolute. I prefer to follow them about to see what spouts. Our Anglican priest in sermon today shared the Jewish blessing, "May you be covered in the dust of your rabbi!" The point is get close to your teacher, maybe especially around his feet.
At any rate, Tagliabue sent me this poem recently on sort of the same Charles Olson subject~~~
With sometimes Song
and its myriad descendents
Being
cast with the dice & the stars
there is no winning or losing but
Being More >
|
|
|
|
 19 Jan 2006 @ 10:34
In Zen meditation we think non-thinking---that is, we think nothing. What this means is that our whole psychological mind ceases to function, and as a result, our whole being becomes united with the essence of mind, which we signify by Mind. You call this essence the God within you, absoluteness, ultimate reason---it doesn't matter. No matter what you call it, to unite with this essence is the very reason we are gathered here to meditate.
---Robert Aitken
To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust.
---Henry David Thoreau
People with opinions just go around bothering one another.
---The Buddha
In the photo the writer and his wife listen to Paul Hackett, candidate for the US Senate from Ohio in the upcoming Democratic primary. [link]
I woke up this morning with a vow in my head to ignore the news and controversies of the day. Like many people in the United States and around the world, I've come to think the news endangers my health. I know many people who are adamant about not wanting to learn what's going on. They say even if you do find out, what do you believe? Everybody lies and twists and distorts. It's all maddening so for a balanced and positive outlook on life, it's better not to look, think about it or know about it. This morning I tried not to think or to look. How did I do? More >
|
|
|
|
 10 Nov 2005 @ 09:57
In order to arrive at that which thou knowest not,
Thou must go by a way that thou knowest not.
In order to arrive at that which thou possesseth not,
Thou must go by a way that thou possesseth not.
---St. John of the Cross
The more faithfully you listen to the voice within you, the better you will hear what is sounding outside. And only he who listens can speak.
---Dag Hammarskjold
Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God.
---Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Jimmy Breslin, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author, poses for a portrait May 19, 1971 in Brooklyn, New York.
My good friend Quinty (Paul Quintanilla [link] ) sent out yesterday's column by Jimmy Breslin with this comment~~~
"What is poetry? The truth burning through lies?
The sharp taste of reality? Here's Jimmy Breslin
burning a whole forest of lies down."
For the sake of younger readers and folks from outta town, Wikipedia at least has this stub of a description of him~~~
Jimmy Breslin (born October 17, 1930) is an American columnist who has appeared regularly in various newspapers in New York City, where he lives. On November 2, 2004 he retired as a regular columnist from Newsday but stated his intention to continue writing. In his final Newsday column, Breslin incorrectly predicted a Kerry victory in the 2004 election.
In 1969, he ran unsuccessfully as an independent for New York City Council President allied with writer Norman Mailer running for Mayor, with the agenda of New York City secession as the 51st state.
He won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary.
Among his notable columns, perhaps the best known was published the day after John F. Kennedy's funeral, focusing on the man who had dug the President's grave. The column was indicative of Breslin's style, which often highlights how major events or the actions of those considered "newsworthy" affect the "common man."
Breslin is the author of a biography of Damon Runyon (Damon Runyon - ISBN 044050502X) and several novels, the best-known of which is The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight (ISBN 0316111740). More >
|
|
<< Newer entries Page: 1 2 3 4 5 Older entries >> |
|
