Notes:
- Photo: Ho Lai Yin Bianca, Australia via Greekcircuit.com. (Thank you Darlene Jones)
- Background on Caleb/Wednesday/Hump Day Posts and Geico’s original commercial: Let’s Hit it Again
Guess.What.Day.It.Is?
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Guess.What.Day.It.Is?
Notes:
- Background on Caleb/Wednesday/Hump Day Posts and Geico’s original commercial: Let’s Hit it Again
- Source: Mennyfox55
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Lightly child, lightly.
Then you sit in silence long enough, you learn that silence has a motion. It glides over you without shape or form, exactly like water. Its color is silver. And silence has a sound you hear only after hours of wading inside it. The sound is soft, like flute notes rising up, like the words of glass speaking. Then there comes a point when you must shatter the blindness of its words, the blindness of its light.
— Anne Spollen, The Shape of Water
Notes:
- Photo: Self portrait by Melania Brescia – “Fade and then Return” (via Mennyfox55)
- Quote: Fables of Reconstruction
- Prior “Lightly child, lightly” Posts? Connect here.
- Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”
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Francoise Nielly
My Modern Met, Vibrant Palette Knife Portraits Radiate Raw Emotions: With bold strokes and vibrant colors, each of Francoise Nielly’s paintings exude raw emotion. Dabbling in a variety of mediums before settling into painting, Nielly has developed a trademark palette knife technique and with each aggressive stroke of oil paint on canvas, the artist sculpts these explosive images. The knife work allows her a full range of movement and the resulting portraits are expressive and unique, distinct faces emerging from the same paints.”
Francoise Nielly: “It’s known that the childhood is one of the most important periods of an artist’s life. When you close your eyes and think about those years, what colors and what kind of memories do you see? …I also nice times, like summer in Cavalaire where we lived on the Mediteranéan side, building huts and cabins and hunting butterflies. I have vivid images of colors, of brightness. Yellow, sunshine, blue, heat, cicadas, pin smell, light… all of that classical imagery of South France is very alive as an experience inside of me. Maybe it is what led me to the use of fluorescent colors in my paintings.
See more art by Francoise Nielly at Francoise-nielly.com and at My Modern Met.
Source: My Modern Met
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And, Autumn. And, Saturday Mornings. WORD.
[…]
Rumi said,
There is no proof of the soul.
But isn’t the return of spring
and how it springs up in our hearts
a pretty good hint?
[…]
~ Mary Oliver, Whistling Swans. Felicity: Poems
- Find full poem here: Whistling Swans by Mary Oliver
- Find Mary Oliver’s new book: Felicity: Poems
- Photo Source: Crisp Air
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Judgment Day
Six photographers.
1 man.
Each photographer is asked to photograph “Michael”.
Each photographer is shared a unique perspective on Michael.
One is told that Michael is a self-made millionaire.
Another, is told Michael has saved someone’s life.
Another, is told Michael is a commercial fisherman.
Another, is told that Michael is a Psychic.
Another, is told that Michael is an ex-inmate.
Another, is told that Michael is a former alcoholic.
Watch the outcome…
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T.G.I.F.: It’s been a long week
“Photographer Olive Santaoloria captures crystal clear underwater portraits. With a limited color range, Santaoloria creates imagery that features subjects frozen in various movements and poses. From a businessman in a suit to a nude woman, the photographs look as if they’re stuck in time. In her own words, the photographer describes the subjects in her work as follows: “From portraits to landscapes, the man of a thousand faces, the woman of a thousand reflections…”
See other underwater portraits here: Olive Santaoloria (via ignorant)
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Guess.What.Day.It.Is?
Notes:
- Source: wsj.com – Indian camel traders arrive with their herd for the annual cattle fair in Pushkar, western Rajasthan state, India. (Deepak Sharma)
- Background on Caleb/Wednesday/Hump Day Posts and Geico’s original commercial: Let’s Hit it Again
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Guess.What.Day.It.Is?
Notes:
- Source: Mennyfox55
- Background on Caleb/Wednesday/Hump Day Posts and Geico’s original commercial: Let’s Hit it Again
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Lightly child, lightly.
It
Troubles me that time should make things sweeter, that
Instead of learning to perceive things as they are I’ve
Learned to lose them, or to see them as they disappear
Into the insubstantial future. Everything here is mine,
Or lies within my power to accept. I want to find a way
To live inside each moment as it comes, then let it go
Before it breaks up in regret or disillusionment.
~ John Koethe, from “Between the Lines,” North Point North: New and Selected Poems
Notes:
- Photo: via Mennyfox55. Poem: The Distance Between Two Doors
- Prior “Lightly child, lightly” Posts? Connect here.
- Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”
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Lightly child, lightly.
Grief is an amputation,
but hope is incurable haemophilia:
you bleed and bleed and bleed.
~ David Mitchell, Slade House
Notes:
- Photo: via Mennyfox55. Quotes: Quotes From Books
- Prior “Lightly child, lightly” Posts? Connect here.
- Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”
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Lightly child, lightly.
People always said Ove and Ove’s wife were like night and day. Ove realized full well, of course, that he was the night. It didn’t matter to him. On the other hand it always amused his wife when someone said it, because she could then point out while giggling that people only thought Ove was the night because he was too mean to turn on the sun. He never understood why she chose him. She loved only abstract things like music and books and strange words. Ove was a man entirely filled with tangible things. He liked screwdrivers and oil filters. He went through life with his hands firmly shoved into his pockets. She danced. “You only need one ray of light to chase all the shadows away,” she said to him once, when he asked her why she had to be so upbeat the whole time. Apparently some monk called Francis had written as much in one of her books. “You don’t fool me, darling,” she said with a playful little smile and crept into his big arms. “You’re dancing on the inside, Ove, when no one’s watching. And I’ll always love you for that. Whether you like it or not.”
~ Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove: A Novel
Notes:
- Photo: mwozniak
- Prior “Lightly child, lightly” Posts? Connect here.
- Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”
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Lightly child, lightly.
Perhaps we are here in order to say: house,
bridge, fountain, gate, pitcher, fruit-tree, window . . .
To say them more intensely
than the Things themselves
ever dreamed of existing.
Notes:
- Quotes: Thank you Whiskey River
- Photo: Mennyfox55
- Prior “Lightly child, lightly” Posts? Connect here.
- Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”
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The virtue of hard things
Most people would think of John Irving as a gifted wordsmith. He is the author of best-selling novels celebrated for their Dickensian plots, including “The Cider House Rules” and “The World According to Garp.” But Mr. Irving has severe dyslexia, was a C-minus English student in high school and scored 475 out of 800 on the SAT verbal test. How, then, did he have such a remarkably successful career as a writer?
Angela Duckworth argues that the answer is “grit,” which she defines as a combination of passion and perseverance in the pursuit of a long-term goal. The author, a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has spent the past decade studying why some people have extraordinary success and others do not. “Grit” is a fascinating tour of the psychological research on success and also tells the stories of many gritty exemplars, from New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff, who submitted some 2,000 drawings to the magazine before one was accepted, to actor Will Smith, who explains his success as follows: “The only thing that I see that is distinctly different about me is: I’m not afraid to die on a treadmill. . . . If we get on the treadmill together, there’s two things: You’re getting off first, or I’m going to die.”
As for Mr. Irving, though verbal fluency did not come easily to him as a young man, what he lacked in aptitude he made up for in effort. In school, if his peers allotted one hour to an assignment, he devoted two or three. As a writer, he works very slowly, constantly revising drafts of his novels. “In doing something over and over again,” he has said, “something that was never natural becomes almost second nature.”
~ Emily Esfahani Smith, in an excerpt from The Virtue of Hard Things, a book review of Angela Duckworth’s new book “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance”
Portrait of John Irving: CBC
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Privileged? Check
Lou Weiss, is a carpet salesman in Pittsburgh. These are excerpts from Privileged? Check Let me count the ways—without embarrassment:
Somewhere along the way, privilege went from something to be grateful for to something to be embarrassed about. As I approach 60, I have been doing the stocktaking prompted by such round-number birthdays and have decided to “give back,” as the saying goes, by performing a public service. I hereby declare myself the World’s Most Privileged Person…
What makes me so privileged? Let’s get the easy ones out of the way, those that are accidents of birth: male, white, straight. I have continued to self-identify as such…
Next come those privileges that reflect the hard work of others: Middle-class-moving-to-upper-middle-class upbringing by two wonderful parents who are still vital. I live in a country where my God-given freedom was articulated by the Founders and is maintained by the selflessness of U.S. soldiers…
Now come my own choices that make me so privileged. I have always been a pretty hard worker, have few vices and am fairly frugal. This allowed me to pay for the schooling of four daughters and make substantial charitable contributions. I don’t know what a single malt scotch is, let alone ever tasted one. Much of my wardrobe is from Costco. And to this day I can’t bring myself to purchase blueberries out of season.
My all-time best decision was marrying a woman with a beautiful face and a pitch-perfect personality. Privileged to spend every day with her? You bet…
The privilege of friendship is also mine. Some friends I’ve known since grade school; all of them stick with me even if they are sick of my politics and puns.
I have multiple sclerosis, which doesn’t sound like much of a privilege, but the timing was: Modern drug companies in search of profits have made medicines that help those with MS live better for longer than they ever have before. I am privileged to have doctors whose passion for their work is palpable…
So here’s my formula for becoming the World’s Most Privileged Person: Get a job in high school, find friends of substance rather than substances, work with people you like, marry happily, dress British and think Yiddish. If you can top that, I would happily surrender the title. It would be a privilege.
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Monday Morning Wake-Up Call
The important things are learned in faces,
in gestures,
not in our locked tongues.
The true things are too big or too small,
or in any case always the wrong size
to fit in the template called language.
~ Jeanette Winterson, Lighthousekeeping (Harvest Books, 2006)
Notes:
- Quote & Photo Share: Newthom
- Portrait: van Willem Hooymans by Stephan Vanfleteren, 1999 – 2000
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Orlando. Pulse. I’m not seeing it either.
I’ll say God seems to have a kind of laid-back management style I’m not crazy about. I’m pretty much anti-death. God looks by all accounts to be pro-death. I’m not seeing how we can get together on this issue, he and I.
― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest
Notes:
- Quote: Thank you The Vale of Soul-Making
- photo:”don’t look back” by margherita loba via Sensual Starfish
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Sunday Morning
It could happen any time, tornado,
earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen.
Or sunshine, love, salvation.
It could, you know. That’s why we wake
and look out – no guarantees
in this life.
But some bonuses, like morning,
like right now, like noon,
like evening.
~ William Stafford, “Yes,” The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems
Sources:
- Photo – Dark Beauty Magazine by Sanjiven Marday via Guruarts Uncommon Inspirations.
- Post inspired by Oskar in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: If the sun were to explode, you wouldn’t even know about it for eight minutes because that’s how long it takes for light to travel to us. For eight minutes, the world would still be bright, and it would still feel warm.
- Related posts: William Stafford
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Start Me Up
Notes: Mick Jagger Portrait by David Bailey (via Precious Things). Post title from The Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up” – music video here. “If you start me up, if you start me up, I’ll never stop. You can start me up, You can start me up, I’ll never stop, I’ve been running hot…”
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the air finding every leaf and feather over forest and water
Next time what I’d do is look at
the earth before saying anything. I’d stop
just before going into a house
and be an emperor for a minute
and listen better to the wind
or to the air being still.
When anyone talked to me, whether
blame or praise or just passing time,
I’d watch the face, how the mouth
has to work, and see any strain, any
sign of what lifted the voice.
And for all, I’d know more – the earth
bracing itself and soaring, the air
finding every leaf and feather over
forest and water, and for every person
the body glowing inside the clothes
like a light.
– Mary Oliver, Next Time
Notes: Poem – Thank you Whiskey River. Photo – Apal’kin (Ukraine) at Paul Apal’kin Photography.
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More Pages to Explore .....
