June 10, 2017 at 7:22 am (Artists and Writers, Plays, Recommended, Sayings, Traveling)
Tags: England, Saturday, Shakespeare, wisdom
O, it is excellent
To have a giant’s strength, but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.
— Isabella, Act II, scene ii, Measure for Measure
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June 8, 2017 at 8:45 pm (Books, Personal Bookshelf, Sayings)
Tags: medicine, supernatural, superstition
- So the right eye of a serpent, being applied to the soreness of the eyes, cures the same, if the serpent be let go alive. So, likewise, the tooth of a mole, being taken out alive and afterwards let go, cures the toothache; and dogs will never bark at those who have the tail of a weasel that has escaped. Democritus says that if the tongue of the chameleon be taken alive, it conduces to good success in trials, and likewise to women in labour; but it must be hung up on some part of the outside of the house; otherwise, if brought into the house, it might be most dangerous.
— Sax Rohmer, The Romance of Sorcery
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May 9, 2017 at 1:55 pm (Artists and Writers, Filipino Writers, Links, postaday, Sayings, Surprises, Traveling, Women Writers)
Tags: art, Cork, discoveries, humor, Ireland, memories, postaday, postaweek, Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Wordpress
Self must admit, this past week’s Photo Challenge — DANGER! — has been tricky. She’s decided to keep her interpretations straightforward and focus on signage or warning symbols.
- Detail of a nautical map in the Time Traveller’s Bookshop, Skibbereen, West Cork: This is one of the most intricate maps self has ever seen. But of course, it had to be. Lives depended on the correct soundings.
Detail of Nautical Map Showing, Self Thinks, West Cork
- A Sketch by Bernadette Burns, Artist from Sherkin Island, off Skibbereen, West Cork: It’s a study for a work-in-progress.
Bernadette said she did this “for fun”!
- London City Airport attached this to self’s suitcase, when she was on the way to the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, in March. Self’s suitcases are always heavy: they’re filled with books. One Irish cabbie dubbed self “a book addict.”
London City Airport attached this warning label to one of her suitcases, last March.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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April 27, 2017 at 7:40 am (Books, Conversations, Family, Filipino Writers, Memoirs, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, Sayings, Women Writers)
Tags: memoir, nonfiction
The friend is Kathleen J. Burkhalter, and her memoir is called The Greatest of These Is Love: Selections From Kathleen’s Celebration of Daily Life, edited by David Bell
- It takes courage to begin writing because to write is to reveal. When you live in a critical environment, it is hard to write authentically. Even to begin writing is an act of bravery. But on the other hand, writing is a form of liberation. Like singers who sing, or composers who make music, or artists who paint, the use of one’s talent is an essential element of being happy.
— p. 116, The Greatest of These Is Love, vol. III
Kathleen Joaquin Burkhalter was born in Augusta, Georgia and grew up in Baguio, Mountain Province, in the Philippines. Her mother was from plantation families in Pampanga and Marinduque, and her father was from a colonial Georgia family. Kathleen would proudly say, “I am 100% Filipino and 100% American.”
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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March 28, 2017 at 11:02 am (Books, Conversations, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, Sayings, Women Writers)
Tags: history, Mary Beard, reading lists, Roman Empire, translation, wisdom
Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?
(Latin for: How long, Catiline, will you keep abusing our patience?)
— from Cicero’s Finest Hour (Chapter 1 of SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome, by Mary Beard)
So far, great.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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March 25, 2017 at 12:03 pm (Books, Conversations, Personal Bookshelf, Sayings, short story collections)
Tags: humor, Iraq, reading lists, Saturday
The title’s a little too obvious. The story itself is layered with irony. It’s all about how American good intentions are worthless. (“The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” a quote from who, self knows not, but you’re welcome)
The narrator is an adviser who gets sent to Iraq as part of the Rebuilding. Shortly after his arrival (via helicopter, a true gift from above!), he has this conversation:
“Cindy’s a true believer . . . “
“What is she working on?”
“She’s our womens initiative adviser,” said Bob. “She used to be on a local school board back in wherever the fuck she’s from. Kansas or Idaho or something. She handles our women’s business association, and she’s starting an agricultural project for widows.”
“She knows about farming?” I said hopefully.
“Nope, but I taught her how to google.”
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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March 9, 2017 at 10:55 am (Artists and Writers, Food and Drink, postaday, Recommended, Sayings, Traveling)
Tags: exhibits, inspiration, museums, postaday, postaweek, wisdom, Wordpress
- There is hope in dreams, imagination, and in the courage of those who wish to make those dreams a reality. — Jonas Salk, quoted in The Daily Post
March is a very significant month in the calendar year. It represents the beginning of spring, hope, everything. Self is in Ireland, so she’s full of hope right now!
Here are three signs, all food-related, which she saw when she visited the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, last month. The current exhibit (through mid-September 2017) is Yummm! The History, Fantasy, and Future of Food.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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February 8, 2017 at 12:15 am (destinations, Places, Recommended, Sayings)
Tags: art, exhibits, inspiration, museum, wisdom
ART AND THE ART OF LIVING
Statement, American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland
Stan Wright’s “First Dance” (made out of telephone wire), a gift by the artist to the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore
The ancients — the Greeks, Egyptians, Hopis and New Guinea tribesmen — were among earth’s most prolific art-making people. Yet none had any word for “art” in their respective languages. Rather, they each had a word that meant “well-made” or “beautifully performed.” Our American Visionary Art Museum believes that this view of what art really means is as perfect an understanding of art as ever was. It speaks to an art incumbent on all its citizens, pervasive throughout all the acts of our daily life. Its emphasis is on process and consciousness, not mere artifact.
Martin Luther King, Jr.:
If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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January 23, 2017 at 4:45 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, Recommended, Sayings, Surprises)
Tags: British authors, discoveries, Mondays, mysteries, reading lists
Self is reading her first Peter Lovesey: Skeleton Hill (#10 in the Inspector Diamond series)
So far (p. 133), she’s loving it.
The Inspector has a wicked boss named Georgina. He runs into trouble with expired license plate tags and has to leave his car at home and get to the office by bus. Then he has a talk with Boss Georgina and she is surprisingly generous and offers him her Mercedes to drive (!!!)
As Inspector Diamoond heads off to investigate a case in Bristol, the car starts behaving strangely, and he pulls over only to discover that he’s run over a nail. Then he has to change the tire, but doesn’t know how. Not only that, his back is killing him. In the meantime, there are one — possibly two — murder cases that need to be resolved.
He has to call a Mercedes Benz dealership to have the car towed and finds that the towing plus replacing the tire and a few other things will come out to almost a thousand GBP (over a thousand US). But:
You have to be positive. As his mother had been fond of saying in times of trouble, the sharper the storm, the sooner it’s over.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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January 9, 2017 at 7:35 pm (Books, Personal Bookshelf, Sayings)
Tags: advice, Mondays, Robert Greene, wisdom
The hunter does not lay the same trap for a wolf as for a fox.
Even “persons so insignificant and so inconsiderable . . . may, some time or other, have it in their power to be of use to you; which they certainly will not, if you have once shown them contempt. Wrongs are often forgiven, but contempt never is. Our pride remembers it forever.” (Lord Chesterfield, 1694 – 1773)
— p. 144, The 48 Laws of Power, by Robert Greene
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