I Can See Clearly Now

The greatest justice in life is that your vision and your looks tend to go simultaneously.

Kevin Bacon

The Real World

We are surrounded by phonies.  And phoniness. We shop at malls that are designed to look like 'real' small town centers. We live in gated or planned 'communities' with names like Pheasant Crossing and River Run selected by real estate developers. ...Even bodies are artificial; we have fake boobs, dyed hair, Botoxed eyes and liposuctioned thighs.

Dick Meyer

Knowledge

Rivers know this: there is no hurry.  We shall get there some day.

A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh

Within

Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that's where you renew your springs that never dry up.

Pearl Buck
Image: Danijel Zezeli

So Close

We lay very still because the broad, stinking muzzle of the lion was snuffling us, pushing its warm dry nostrils against our hair and our cheeks, running them down our bodies and back up to our mouths, a low quiet growl like a basso purr in its throat, and I dared to look into its burning yellow-green eyes.

Brad Watson

One Turn

I am turning over a new leaf but the page is stuck.

Diane Arbus

Nothing To See

In winter ... there is no line dividing earth from sky. the two are of the same substance. There is no middle distance, no perspective, no outline ... when winds rise and powdery snow fills the air, there is neither up nor down and the traveler is left blind white.

Edmund Carpenter
Image: http://dyingrose24.deviantart.com/

Roughing It

Smith looked Joe over skeptically. "I've never hunted or fished in my life," he said.  "I don't even like the outdoors. I don't see the point of going without a hot shower, a cold cocktail, and a flush toilet. As far as I'm concerned, camping is just nature's way of feeding mosquitos."

C. J. Box, Cold Wind

Memorize the Date

History is an account,

mostly false,

of events,

mostly unimportant,

which are brought about by rulers,

mostly knaves,

and soldiers,

mostly fools.

Ambrose Bierce

Trust Me

A true friend always stabs you in the front.

Oscar Wilde

Blind Faith

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.

Helen Keller

Warning

There are moments when everything goes well; don't be frightened, it won't last.

Jules Renard

One More Sign of Civilization Circling the Drain

Kim Kardashian's butt is real. Some haters said it was fake. To prove them wrong , she had a doctor take X-rays to show that it was implant-free.

Odd as it sounds, when a symbol of trumped-up celebrity has a part of her anatomy authenticated, it's a perfect expression of Americanness.

Gregory Rodriguez

Yada, Yada

I love talking about nothing. It's the only thing I know anything about.

Oscar Wilde

Art or Craft? Or Life's Work?

I’m not sure when Craft became a bad word. In the 70’s when women were arriving on the art scene using the only materials they were allowed access to? In the 90’s when everyone started scrapbooking every moment of their lives? At what point did artists decide we needed to distance ourselves, to elevate ourselves, to make ourselves feel better by staying away from the C-word?

Julie Guyot 
Cups by Julie Guyot

Thankful

Thank you, first sheet of a new toilet paper roll that won't tear off evenly so I have to scratch and claw and shred three layers of the roll just to get the thing started. But that's cool.  I think I'll have the last laugh, since I know where you're ending up.

Jimmy Fallon

Read My Lips

The imminent death of the printed word on paper?  The next time the urge for a nap overtakes you, try falling asleep with a Kindle on your face.

Louis H. Nevell

Call the Meeting To Order

Card-carrying member of the Society for the Occasionally Coherent.

Small Comfort

The great and almost only comfort about being a woman is that one can always pretend to be more stupid than one is and no one is surprised.

Freya Stark
Portrait of an Elderly Lady by Mary Cassatt

Can You Hear Me Now?

"This is the number for Joseph Stiglitz,

 but he doesn't check his messages."

Deborah Soloman questioned him about the voicemail message on his cellphone.  His response? “I just never figured out that part of the cellphone.”

After ....

Not smoking gains in the area of lung cancer, but it loses badly in the realm of dramatic gestures.

Yummy

Forget it with the whole-grain cereal. If I want fiber, I'll eat some wicker furniture.

George Carlin

Government At Its Best

Romania changed its labor laws to officially recognize witchcraft as a profession in a government drive to crack down on tax evasion. Along with the witches, now astrologers, embalmers, valets and driving instructors are considered to have real jobs, making it harder for them to avoid income tax. Angered by the tax move, one self-described witch told a top TV station's website that she plans to cast a spell on the government.

Alone

In the lonely pockets of towns and cities, a thousand minds tick.

Don DeLillo

The Best Critic Ever: Roger Ebert

When I met them they were not old enough to vote and got into heated discussions of Otto Preminger's policy of not doing over-the-shoulder camera shots. When Preminger finally used one, they began vibrating so violently that I prepared cold compresses.

Roger Ebert, on film critics Dave Kehr and Todd McCarthy 

Winter

And this may be the heart of it, that winter even as we fight it is both a measure and cause of our vitality. That though it may exist as an enemy, it is something of extraordinary beauty.

Mark Helprin
Photo: Ivan Herman

The Time is Now

The Time Is Now

(author unknown)

If you are ever going to love me,

Love me now, while I can know

The sweet and tender feelings

Which from true affection flow.

Love me now

While I am living.

Do not wait until I'm gone

And then have it chiseled in marble,

Sweet words on ice-cold stone.

If you have tender thoughts of me,

Please tell me now.

If you wait until I am sleeping,

Never to awaken,

There will be death between us

And I won't hear you then.

So, if you love me, even a little bit,

Let me know it while I am living

So I can treasure it.

Photo: clemetine.deviantart.com/

Hello?

My cat does not know me when we meet a block away from home, and I gather from his expression that I'm not supposed to know him either.

Guy Davenport
Photo: Laura O'Halloran

Unseen

Dreams have only one owner at a time. That's why dreamers are lonely.

Erma Bombeck

Below Average, Personified

We live in a democracy, which means Rule by The People.
Fifty percent of people are of below average intelligence.

This explains everything about politics.

P. J. O'Rourke

Can You Hear Me Now?

If I seem unduly clear to you, you must have misunderstood what I said.

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan

Reality

It was the abyss of human illusion that was the real, the tideless deep.

Henry James

Where Was I?

Inside every old person is a young person who wonders what the heck happened.

Sketchiness

The Sketchbook is finished. And mailed.
This is just a vague preview. Or you could consider it the Trailer.

With Heart

My feeling about technique in art is that it has about the same value as technique in lovemaking. Heartfelt ineptitude has its appeal and so does heartless skill; but what you want is passionate virtuosity.

John Barth
Art: Julie Mehretu

On Writing

... like walking down the landscape of the self ... you find false trails, roads closed for repairs, impregnable fortresses, scouts, armies of memory, and impossible cartography.

August Wilson

Where?

In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the way was lost.

Dante

Creativity

When I start out I always think that this is going to be the greatest in the world.  And then, once I get started, the truck with the Compromises pulls up every day, and by the time I'm finished I just pray to God that I'm saved from humiliation.

Woody Allen

Show Me

Thunder is impressive, but it is the lightning that does all the work.

Mark Twain

No And No Again

Question: Is it OK if I smoke?
Response:  Only if you catch fire.

William J. Reynolds

Gone?

Years after the death of loved ones, we may find ourselves dreaming that they are alive.  How happy we are to see them, to hear their voices, to realize how absurdly mistaken we were to think them lost forever. Then we wake, remember the truth and feel a pang as sharp as any we suffered in the early days of mourning.

Francine Prose

Veterans' Day

The Greatest Generation of World War II soldiers pales in contrast to these soldiers who fight on without a mission or objective other than to draw fire from the enemy. They are largely ignored by those on the home front, who cannot even articulate why they are there.

Rey Olsen

Laugh A Lot

You laugh because I'm different.
I laugh because you are all the same.

Please, No.

I worry that the person who thought up Muzak may be thinking of something else.

Lily Tomlin