Blogut

Why humans evolved to love watching animals We are living,...

Fri, 06 Jun 2014 16:09:04 +0200

Why humans evolved to love watching animals

We are living, breathing, perspiring, seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, eating, defecating, urinating, copulating, child-rearing, and ultimately dying animals ourselves. It is plausible that deep in the human psyche there resides the simple yet profound recognition of a relationship between Us and Them.

American Library Pictures from a new book by Robert Dawson of...

Fri, 06 Jun 2014 15:26:10 +0200

American Library

Pictures from a new book by Robert Dawson of quintessential American public libraries—some famous, some neglected, some both.

We Must Ban the Bicycle Commute Still, we are not altogether in...

Fri, 06 Jun 2014 14:43:07 +0200

We Must Ban the Bicycle Commute

Still, we are not altogether in chains. We can still make choices for a better world. We can still remember what it is like to coast through the thick air that hangs low on empty city streets late in the summer night. We can still gather and form a critical mass, riding in a circle for the simple reason to proclaim that we are here. We can still recall what it is to ride without purpose, from one end of the garden to the other, and from one side of the city to another, too. We can take a stand, and say that we will not relent. We will take no more. We will only do what is right and ban the cycle commute.

Forgiveness

Thu, 05 Jun 2014 14:34:39 +0200

We could wade from that island into clear ocean
for hundreds of yards before the water
was even up to our knees.
We could sit there and watch small birds, and vultures
so high they hardly seemed to move.
We could walk out even further, to where the sand dropped off,
where the water was dark, and muscular—
and we could push ourselves out into that dark deep
full of the ghosts of huge fish we feared
were fished out now, even while we shivered
with the fear of being watched from below.
We could reach a sand bar, almost out of sight.
We could stay out until dusk and swim back through the dark.
Or rain could start to fall, so hard we couldn’t hear
each other, or ourselves. And sea birds, gulls and pelicans,
cormorants, terns, anhingas—could float
to that sand bar to wait out the rain. They could be
close enough to touch, all around us. And when the rain
stopped abruptly, they could take off
in a burst, all directions. The water would feel cold
as we swam back, and the surface we swam through
would be fresh enough to drink. And it would smell of flowers.

Michael Hettich

Cello

Thu, 05 Jun 2014 12:09:10 +0200

What a sad music
when the cello’s bow
wounds the strings of my heart

And you the performer
unaware of the grief of the instrument
only know the beauty of the music

Óscar Hahn

Questions Midway

Thu, 05 Jun 2014 09:43:11 +0200

A man asks terrible questions
of me: why I, who might have done
anything, wear this life I’ve kept on

like a shiny rayon second-hand dress,
worn not for beauty, but effect, whose roses
bloom a Pepto-Bismol effervesce.

Why have I never had a job up to my intellect?
The sky cracked open today, circumspect
no more, and I’d left home without protection.

Can we go outside and play in the rain?
How can a letter hold so much pain
that the reader re-reads and weeps again?

Driving home a little lit last night
(God protects drunks and Irish girls, right?)
this thought sideswiped me at a stoplight:

I don’t believe that love can last forever.
If I had to choose between safety and danger,
Gentle Reader, can you guess the answer?

Most nights I like the bed empty,
my arms a startled parenthesis.
(But should a spinster be this greedy?)

Will I always want to wake up alone?
Tonight, awakened by the shrill of the phone,
mistaking the twilight for the dawn,

I want a voice I’ve never heard
to speak in a language that has no word
for sadness. When will I learn?

Moira Egan

Bora Bora (by Tim Jordan Photography)

Wed, 04 Jun 2014 10:21:23 +0200

Bora Bora (by Tim Jordan Photography)

Spring (by Lyuba Burakova)

Wed, 04 Jun 2014 09:53:23 +0200

Spring (by Lyuba Burakova)

Enoshima (by Yotta1000)

Wed, 04 Jun 2014 09:24:52 +0200

Enoshima (by Yotta1000)

"Most of us are content to exist and breed, and fight for the right to do both, and the dominant..."

Tue, 03 Jun 2014 21:39:04 +0200

“Most of us are content to exist and breed, and fight for the right to do both, and the dominant idea, the foredoomed attempt to control one’s destiny, is reserved for the fortunate or unfortunate few.”

- F. Scott Fitzgerald | Gatsby Girls

from the story The Offshore Pirate

"All life is just a progression toward and then a recession from one phrase—‘I love you.’"

Tue, 03 Jun 2014 21:11:03 +0200

“All life is just a progression toward and then a recession from one phrase—‘I love you.’”

- F. Scott Fitzgerald | Gatsby Girls

from the story The Offshore Pirate

"We’re going through the black air with our arms wide,” she called, “and our feet straight out behind..."

Tue, 03 Jun 2014 20:42:33 +0200

“We’re going through the black air with our arms wide,” she called, “and our feet straight out behind like a dolphin’s tail, and we’re going to think we’ll never hit the silver down there till suddenly it’ll be all warm round us and full of little kissing, caressing waves.”

- F. Scott Fitzgerald | Gatsby Girls

from the story The Offshore Pirate

"This is the beauty I want. Beauty has got to be astonishing, astounding—it’s got to burst in on you..."

Tue, 03 Jun 2014 20:14:43 +0200

“This is the beauty I want. Beauty has got to be astonishing, astounding—it’s got to burst in on you like a dream, like the exquisite eyes of a girl.”

- F. Scott Fitzgerald | Gatsby Girls

from the story The Offshore Pirate

"Poor gauzy souls trying to express ourselves in something tangible. Marcia with her written book; I..."

Tue, 03 Jun 2014 19:46:11 +0200

“Poor gauzy souls trying to express ourselves in something tangible. Marcia with her written book; I with my unwritten ones. Trying to choose our mediums and then taking what we get—and being glad.”

- F. Scott Fitzgerald | Gatsby Girls

from the story Head And Shoulders

"People over forty can seldom be permanently convinced of anything. At eighteen our convictions are..."

Tue, 03 Jun 2014 19:18:07 +0200

“People over forty can seldom be permanently convinced of anything. At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.”

- F. Scott Fitzgerald | Gatsby Girls

from the story Bernice Bobs Her Hair

F. Scott Fitzgerald | Gatsby Girls

Tue, 03 Jun 2014 19:07:21 +0200

F. Scott Fitzgerald | Gatsby Girls

Cherry Blossoms by Frederick Carl Frieseke

Mon, 02 Jun 2014 17:00:18 +0200

Cherry Blossoms by Frederick Carl Frieseke

Venus in the Sunlight by Frederick Carl Frieseke

Mon, 02 Jun 2014 16:00:14 +0200

Venus in the Sunlight by Frederick Carl Frieseke

Blue Girl Reading by Frederick Carl Frieseke

Mon, 02 Jun 2014 15:00:12 +0200

Blue Girl Reading by Frederick Carl Frieseke

How to Be a Writer Let her be lonely. Let her believe that no...

Fri, 09 May 2014 17:00:20 +0200

How to Be a Writer

Let her be lonely. Let her believe that no one in the world truly understands her. Give her the freedom to fall in love with the wrong person, to lose her heart, to have it smashed and abused and broken. Occasionally be too busy to listen, be distracted by other things, have your nose in a great book, be gone with your own friends.