Summer Books**

Taken from an interview between John Irving and his editor Harvey Ginsberg, included in the Reader's Guide for A Widow for One Year ...

"HG: You are known as a great defender of the nineteenth-century, particularly the words of Dickens and Thomas Hardy.  What virtues do you find there that you feel are missing in contemporary fiction, and which contemporary novelists do you think fulfill -- or come closest to fulling -- these virtues?

JI:  Thomas Hardy insisted that a novel had to be a better story than something you might happen upon in a newspaper.  He meant "better" in every way: bigger, more complex, more connected, and also having a kind of symmetry or closure -- even achieving a kind of justice, or at least an inevitability, in the end.

George Eliot, too -- and of course Dickens. Their novels were *designed*.  David Copperfield once remarked that he found real life a whole lot messier than he expected to find it.  Modernism in literature upholds the theory that a novel can be a patternless mess (without a plot) because real life is like that.  Well, good novels, in my view, are better made than real life. 

If I like Dickens better than Hardy or Eliot, it is chiefly because Dickens is also comic.  Even the contemporary novelists I most admire are nineteenth-century storytellers: Gunter Grass, Salman Rushdie, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Robertson Davies.  They all love plot, developed characters with interconnected stories, and the passage of time and its effects; not surprisingly, given my taste, they are all comic novelists, too.

I think the most modern novelist I admire is Graham Greene – “modern” in the sense that his emotions are inscrutable and, at least compared to the abovementioned four, he is very spare.  But Greene was also a good storyteller, and he sought a symmetry or closure to his novels; the architecture mattered to him."

The architecture matters to me, too.  Irving put into words so well those elements from 19th century literature that I so appreciate in any work of fiction, 19th-century or modern or otherwise.

The Bronte Plot by Katherine Reay - utterly delightful, beginning to end.  I just added all of this author's books to my wishlist :-).  [Note: I ended up reading Reay's other two books, also.  Bronte Plot remains my favorite-I-will-enthusiastically-lend-to-everyone-who-hasn't-yet-read-it.  Dear Mr. Knightley was a fun, fluffy read.  Lizzie & Jane was just ok.]

Boxers and Saints by Gene Luen Yang (graphic novel book club selection) - Empathy is the goal here, methinks, as this two-volume book recounts the history of the Boxer Rebellion - in one book from the perspective of the Boxers and in one book from the perspective of the Saints (thus, the titles).  The author is himself a Chinese American Catholic and he discusses how his identity influences his stories in this Wired interview.  Super well done.  Super meticulous, tight artistry and dialogue and story narration.  That said, not totally my preferred genre ... because ... [at the risk of sounding silly & cliche & not "real life"] ... I like happily-ever-after, and this was, well, MacBeth-y.  For a much more fleshed-out review, please check out Seth Hahne's excellent review at Good Ok Bad.

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang (graphic novel) - this is the book I wrongly received when I ordered the Boxers and Saints book set.  So I decided the "perk" for my inconvenience was to read this book before returning it.  I read it, loved it, returned it, and promptly ordered it [at the correct price].  Because a copy needs to reside on my bookshelves and all my dudes need to read it.  It's clever, thoughtful, funny, deeply insightful, winsome, full of heart and truth.  It deals with what it's like to be "different" and how one straddles the continuum of retaining one's culture/identity versus "blending in".

The Lonesome Gods by Louis L'Amour -  I took this book on vacation with me last week (mid June). It was a perfect story to have with me in the midst of mega-distractions (airports, airplanes, car rides, family-watching-tv-shows-not-interesting-to-me) ... because super simple sentences and each idea that LL wanted me not to miss repeated *at least* three times :-}. I enjoyed it for all the detail regarding my beloved CA/AZ desert landscape. I also liked this novel for all the reasons Heidi poignantly pointed out in her review. I also-- perhaps surprisingly-- in equal parts, disliked it - mostly because the writing style itself drove me nutso. It became [unintendedly] comic to me as I repeated to Big Dude at various intervals that the desert was still dangerous, water was vitally important, Johannes' grandfather was still a very scary man, it's important to keep thinking and learning and reading and bettering oneself, change is coming change is coming change is coming, and Indians are very complex. It's not that those things aren't true in the book; it's just that I fully knew it by the first couple dozen times L'Amour told me... Nonetheless, a pretty good, easy-read, vacay book (Vanity Fair stayed at home - grin).   Simple story, simply told, with everything simply ending with the good guys winning and the bad guys all dead.

Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner - a quiet, eloquent, character-driven story exploring friendship, marriage (for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do them part), hopes dashed, hopes fulfilled, deep sorrow, exquisite happiness, questions of "what if", commitment's costs and rewards, enduring, accepting... this story felt ... real.   First person narrative, taking place over the course of one day and remembering decades of life overlapping between two couples.  "Drama," Stegner writes in Crossing to Safety, "demand the reversal of expectation, but in such a way that the first surprise is followed by an immediate recognition of inevitability.  And inevitability takes careful pin-setting. Since this story is about a friendship, drama expects friendship to be overturned. Something, the novelist in me whispers, is going to break up our cozy foursome ... Well, too bad for drama.  Nothing of the sort is going to happen. Something less orthodoxly dramatic is ..."

My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier - oh my.  This has hooked me in the very first chapter.  Can we say Haunting, Foreboding, Boldly Foreshadowing?!???  Daphne du Maurier is best-known for her gothic Cornish novel, Rebecca; and I dare to suggest that My Cousin Rachel is every bit as good as, and perhaps the superior to, Rebecca.  The toxicity of jealousy, the power of love to blind (for "the heart controls the body. and the mind."), the lies we tell ourselves to justify our beliefs/actions, the arrogance of youth ... it's all here.  And it's sooooo good.

The Reading Promise by Alice Ozma - I'm not a non-fiction reader.  It's just not my preferred genre. Like John Irving brilliantly put-words-to (top of this post), I like my stories to be better than newspaper accounts; I like a book to be bigger, better, more complex, with symmetry and closure ... architecture!  But, if you don't have this hang-up like I do, and you like sweet, well-told memoirs written by someone with whom you have no acquaintance (but feel like you "know" by the end of the book), then The Reading Promise may totally delight you.  As a bonus, the battle cry of this book is:  "... a promise to remember the power of the printed word, to take time to cherish it, to protect it at all costs ... the life-changing ability literature can have ..."

A Widow for One Year by John Irving - It used to be that I always gave a book the benefit of doubt and read to the end even if it started kinda "icky".  As I've gotten older, I have less patience (and more discernment, I like to think) with books.  I will often abandon a book 50-100 pages in (if not poorly written), or even just a mere chapter in (if poorly written).  Then there's this book and this conundrum: it definitely starts icky and quickly gets ickier. As a reader, I hope that the "icky" is merely the background against which the narrative will play.  But, no; the icky remains.  And the whole atmosphere feels so completely morally bankrupt.  But.  John Irving is a fantastic writer. In some ways, he seems to me like a modern-day "classic novelist" akin to Dickens or Eliot or Hardy.  He can definitely vividly develop a story and a place and people it with non-cardboard characters. Which leaves me wanting to know where he's taking the icky and whether there's going to be anything redeemable about the lives of his book's people or the story. I didn't quit this one.  But I probably should have.  Despite the last 6-ish lines being genius, I really kind of felt like I needed to wash my brain out from the rest.

.

**nota bene:  I'm sort of a huge proponent of reading the "great books". My dudes will all graduate high school having had a hefty dose of great books. My monthly book club hones in to great books; and yes, we grumble about them, and occasionally don't like them, and find them to be hard slogging, and we even have to fortify ourselves to the eventuality of sometime in the near future finally tackling ... [sigh] ... Moby Dick. The process is hard. The process often sends me personally running in search of light fluffy FUN books to mix things up (my "candy"). The process is ultimately REWARDING and FULFILLING.

I was much encouraged by this talk that Eva Brann, a great books tutor at St. John’s College, recently gave at the Torrey Honors Institute regarding “Why We Should Read”. Sooo much good stuff to ponder in this essay of sorts, but here's one portion I appreciated (especially the delineation of books we "scarf up in a state of pleasant relaxation" vs. the demanding ones - I often find myself running hard between these two!) ...

"There’s reading and then there’s reading. There’s the kind called texting, done on a minuscule tablet with a limit to the ciphers used, which has, in effect, given up the ghost of significance. Then there’s the kind of easy feed, the best-seller, which we scarf up in a state of pleasant relaxation. Then there’s the instruction booklet, infinitely annoying because widget A never does fit into aperture B. I won’t attempt to list all the types of reading we do, but instead, I’ll leap to the list of books to which your program of learning is in fact devoted. These books all share one characteristic: They are demanding. They’re not taken up lightly, nor do they go down easily, nor are they irritatingly inscrutable. They are, instead, difficult. Some, like Hume’s great Treatise, are lucid on the surface and more and more complex as you penetrate it; others, like Kant’s Critiques, are obscure when you first open them but become quite intelligible as you go. All require your undivided attention and repay it with insights that are at once new to you and also welcome to your intellect. They deliver adventitious, that is, novel, matter which nevertheless immediately sits well in your intellect—or rouses energizing opposition. The fictions among these works also require alert being-there. You can’t scan or abstract a great novel: The plot is an extrusion of the characters’ being, not their prop, as in a routine romance. …

To View–or Not to View–the Work of Other Creatives

Original Creation, Study the Masters, Imitation is the Highest Compliment, Imitation is Plagiarism, Copying is Bad, Nothing is Original, Be Original, Don’t Look, LOOK!!   I’ve heard it all.  And often.  And I think there are gems of wisdom throughout the “Photographic Celibacy” (a phrase coined by Cole Thompson that advocates never studying your fellow photographers’ work) Continuum (the “Continuum” is my mashup of the varying philosophies).  To View or Not To View.  Here are the options as I see them through these five articles…

Complete Celibacy:  Cole Thompson*, if it’s important to you to develop your own individual vision, it’s perhaps worth considering NOT viewing/studying/”being-inspired-by” other photographers’ work.  Studying others’ work can make an “imprint” on your conscious and subconscious mind and end up in your own creations.  I appreciated this quote by Cole Thompson:  [at a portfolio review of his own work] “One of the reviewers said that it appeared I was trying to copy Ansel Adams and Edward Weston’s style.  When I responded that I was, because I loved their work, he very bluntly pointed out that Ansel already did Ansel and that no one was going to do it better than Ansel.”

Modified Celibacy:  Sarah Marino*, it’s ok to look and find inspiration, but it matters *when* you choose to look and *when* you choose to avoid.  Sarah Marino’s approach [to her landscape photography]:  “While I still find energy and inspiration in viewing photographs from others, I try to be diligent about not researching a place I am going to visit or am already photographing. By avoiding researching how others have photographed a place, I am able to approach it with awe, wonder, and curiosity rather than spending mental energy trying to keep outside influences at bay.”

Helsinki Bus Station Theory (this is a fantastic analogy, be sure to click thru!) - Arno Rafael Minkkinen*, developing your own creative vision is a journey and you should  “STAY ON THE BUS” to differentiate your work, create your masterpieces, have the “stamp of your unique vision.”

Explore Others’ Work to Extend & Define Our Own - Erin Babnik*, it’s ok standing on the shoulders of giants, just make sure you are contributing and “extending the conversation”, creating *substance* more so than *difference*.  This quote from Erin that I LOVE:  “… burying your head in the sand only cuts off an important avenue for personal development. If we think about existing photographs positively, as foundational elements for all that follows, then we will be more likely to process this visual input in creative ways. We don’t have to try to ‘un-see’ other photographs or fear how they might affect our own work if we embrace the idea that we can ‘own’ our responses to them.”

Binge/Spree/Debauchery(only said here as an antonym of celibacy):  Ugo Cei*, no artist grows in a vacuum, study, immerse yourself, devour, select only inspiration that speaks to your soul and lights a fire, be deliberate, practice and practice and practice more, feed your muse.  Ugo Cei has a great list of “to do” activities that help you do just that.
*each article referred to above is linked; just click on name.

So where do I fall in this spectrum?  Truthfully, at different times I land in different places.  In the beginning, I was all about studying peers I admired.  I’ve gone through periods where I minutely study only my own work and look for the common threads of what makes “my” pictures mine.  I look for my weaknesses.  I look for my strengths.  I then look again at strengths of peers’ work.  More importantly, I study what makes the Masters masters.  I’m all about the Copia.



Copia is a term of rhetoric that refers to expansive richness and amplification as a stylistic goal; it’s loosely translated from Latin to mean an abundant and ready supply of language – something appropriate to say or write whenever the occasion arises.  Erasmus created a whole theory and wrote an entire book on this concept.   Please forgive my segue here; I promise to tie it all together …My dudes (God bless ‘em) have all been exposed, from the very first days of their education, to writing by imitation.  I did not set them up with a notebook and tell them to freeform diary their thoughts.  Instead, I gave them beautiful sentences to copy.  We studied Aesop’s fables and timeless fairytales and worked our way up to classics of literature and famous essays.  My dudes studied and imitated and paraphrased these masters of writing and rhetoric.  We developed COPIA:  figures of description, figures of speech, simple/compound/complex/compound-complex sentence structure, expansion, contraction, types of paragraphs for essays (encomium, paraphrase, cause, opposite, analogy, examples, testimony, epilogue, confirmation, refutation, comparison).  We played with narrative structures – simple linear, flashbacks, in medias res, end-to-beginning.  All of these pieces of the rhetoric puzzle are “tools in our toolbox” to help us write persuasively and beautifully.  And if Little Dude asks me even one more time WHY he has to incorporate three figures of speech into his narrative … (but I digress…)  Anywhooo.  COPIA.  Tools in my toolbox.  I like to study the excellent elements of excellent artists.  If there’s room to incorporate such excellence into my own creations, I’m all for it.  I want a whole "toolbox" of elements of excellence that I can choose to use or exclude in the making of my images.  And thus, Erasmus, a writer/rhetorician makes it into my post category of "Lessons from the Masters."

And in the spirit of celebrating the development of copia … here is Little Dude in his graphite drawing class, learning from a master, imitating art, all with the goal of stretching/refining/defining his own skills and vision.

The Cross. Jesus. New Life.

INTIMACY BEFORE AGONY
… ”Over the course of three years, the disciples had heard Jesus teach on a variety of subjects, including love. But Jesus never spoke of love the way he did the night before he went to the cross (once Judas had left). He mentioned “love” more than thirty times that night — the Father’s love for him, his love for the Father, even the world’s brand of love. Yet, I imagine what rang, especially in the disciples’ hearts, were his words about love concerning those present among them.
Jesus made love personal, saying, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (John 13:34). Amid bickering and betrayal, relationship moved front and center. The disciples were about to experience sorrow they’d never known. They were about to be tested as never before. They needed one another. They needed to love one another. And their love would serve as a witness to a watching world that they were his disciples (John 13:35).
But once again, Jesus was not merely teaching. He was expressing the love he felt for them. “ . . . as I have loved you . . . ” No doubt, they knew that Jesus loved them. But this is the first time, as recorded in the Gospels, that Jesus openly expressed it. And he didn’t say it just once.

• “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.” (John 15:9)
• “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:12)

What a comfort to hearts filling with sorrow as Jesus spoke of leaving. Though he would be physically gone and though they couldn’t follow him, they could abide in his love.
And then he said this: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you” (John 15:13–14).”  … Kim Cash Tate

THE CROSS
“We often hear the phrase, “the crux of the matter” or “the crux of a situation.” The word “crux” comes from Medieval Latin, and simply means cross. Why has the word “crux” come to be associated with a critical juncture or point in time? Because the Cross of Christ is truly the crux of history. Without the Cross, history itself cannot be defined or corrected.
There is another word we often hear when we are in the throes of indescribable pain, the word, “excruciating.” That, too, derives from the Latin and means “out of the cross.” Across time and human experience, the historical event of the Cross intersects time and space and speaks to the deepest hurts of the human heart.
But we live with more than pain and suffering. We also live with deep hungers within the human heart, such as the hunger for truth, for justice, forgiveness, and peace. As I see it, there is only one place in the world where these hungers converge: it is in the Cross of Christ, where perfect peace and perfect justice became united in one death on a Friday afternoon.”  … Ravi Zacharias

BEAUTY FROM ASHES
”I keep seeing this image. It’s of the disciples, and Jesus’s mother, Mary, weeping at the foot of the cross. They are huddled together, trying to comfort each other. Trying to make sense of all that has happened. But it just doesn’t make sense.
‘The sky is black. All hope looks lost. Their dreams have died. It seems that nothing good will ever come from this.
‘To them, this day, Good Friday, is the darkest day they’ve ever known.
‘But the one thing that they do not know is . . . Easter is coming.’” … Vaneetha Rendall Risner
 

"IN SPITE OF THAT, WE CALL THIS FRIDAY GOOD" ~ T.S. Eliot in East Coker
"I'm trying not to skip ahead to Easter. I'm trying, these two days, to sit in the grace of the stripped altar and enter imaginatively into the place of the disciples [and Jesus's mother], who only knew that their Lord had died, not that he would rise again.  Flannery O'Connor's stories are a help in that regard. Her characters suffer and boast and finagle their way through a broken world, unaware that grace is streaking silently toward them like a meteor that will throw everything off balance." ... Jonathan Rogers


AT WORK IN THE DARK
“Jesus was dead and buried, with a big stone rolled against the tomb, and the Pharisees came to Pilate to ask for permission to seal the stone and guard the tomb. Pilate responded, “You have a guard of soldiers. Go, make it as secure as you can” (Matthew 27:65). So they did.
They gave it their best shot — in vain.
It was hopeless then, it is hopeless today, and it will always be hopeless. Try as they may, people can’t keep Jesus down. They can’t keep him buried. They may use physical force or academic scorn or media blackout or political harassment or religious caricature. For a season, they will think the tomb is finally sealed. But it never works. He breaks out.
It’s not hard to figure out: He can break out because he wasn’t forced in. He lets himself be libeled and harassed and black-balled and scorned and shoved around and killed.

I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. (John 10:17–18)

No one can keep him down because no one ever knocked him down. He lay down when he was ready.
China may have been “closed” for forty years to Western missionaries, and it’s not because Jesus slipped and fell into the tomb. He stepped in. And when it was sealed over, he saved fifty million Chinese from inside — without Western missionaries. And when it was time, he pushed the stone away so we could see what he had done. …

For twenty centuries, the world has given it their best shot — in vain. They can’t bury him. They can’t hold him in. They can’t silence him or limit him.
Jesus is alive and utterly free to go and come wherever he pleases. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18). All things were made through him and for him, and he is absolutely supreme over all other powers (Colossians 1:16–17).”  … John Piper
 
LO, I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS, EVEN TO THE END OF THE AGE
… ”But the old creation is to limp along a little longer, while they believe that the new creation is already here and walk by faith. They must not doubt though their mortal eyes cannot apprehend this new creation. By faith they must participate in it. They must live in the faith that the curse has already been repealed. That death itself has already been conquered. That though they go down to the grave - that this means nothing.
But they shall be raised again in glory - like their saviour. And their eyes shall see him and not another. Even as their outward man - which still partakes of the old world - is passing away, they must understand that the inner man now partakes of the glory and the power of the resurrected Christ. And is being renewed daily in this new creation. And one day, though their outward man has gone down to the dust, yet he shall come up again as well. Christ is the firstfruits of that great harvest.
So Jesus gives them an assurance, though he does not appear in the eyes of the world as a king, yet all authority, all power—in heaven and on earth—has been given to him. Though they do not see him sitting on his judgment throne condemning those who crucified him—though they do not see him with a visible crown or a visible kingdom—still he tells them, ‘I have all authority and power. My reign begins now. My kingdom is here.’" … The Whole Story as preached by Bill Baldwin

That Sky. Those Waves.

The weather has been miserably hot.  Miserably humid.  I’ve maybe been whining about it without ceasing a bit. 

But all that weird weather has been making for some stunning skies and amazing evenings at the beach this last week.  I. Can’t. Even.

So, can I make a confession?  I get kinda judgy about words.  And I get kinda really judgy about “grownups” adopting kids’ trendy verbiage.  And I’m all like, I get really REALLY, like, I-Can’t-Even judgy about my peers sprinkling their conversations liberally with “likes”.  It literally makes me crazy.  (see what I did there? and even inside these parentheses?)  Judgy isn’t pretty and I’m not making a case for my-way-or-the-highway.  I’m just confessing.  And linking – for the first and likely last time ever – to Slate, who’s making a pretty solid case for defending the usage of I-Can’t-Even.  The author equates this silly phrase with the ancient Greek rhetorical device of “aposiopesis”, which is a “figure of speech wherein a sentence is deliberately broken off and left unfinished, the ending to be supplied by the imagination, giving an impression of unwillingness or inability to continue.”  (definition source: Wikipedia)  The Slate author shows how this particular rhetorical device has been brilliantly used by Virgil in the Aeneid, Shakespeare in King Lear, and even more [relatively] recently by … the Three Stooges.  I really like arguments that use the Ancients’ wisdom to justify and educate.  In her conclusion, the author asks & answers the question: “So are Americans suffering from a profound lack of ability to process their emotions? Maybe. Are they suffering from a profound lack of communication skills? Definitely not. They're simply doing more with less.”   But.  Much though I appreciate ancient wisdom and smart wordsmiths like Virgil and Shakespeare, I completely disagree with this journalist’s conclusion.  I think people today just want to sound trendy. 

And so, I-Can’t-Even has become the newest mock-worthy phrase in Kellerville.

Thanksgiving Proclamation

Issued by President George Washington, at the request of Congress, on October 3, 1789

By the President of the United States of America, a Proclamation.

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and—Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me “to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:”

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favor, able interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquillity, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted; for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other trangressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally, to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

Go. Washington

more books ...

Yikes.  It's a while since I've reported my recent readings.  So here's my last 6 months of readings.  Some excellent (TKAM, Night, & Out of the Dust, I'm talking to YOU!).  Some not so excellent...


A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton Porter. sweet, innocent, charming, cozy book. reminiscent of Anne of Green Gables, tho with a big dose of naturalist detail. The delightfulness of this book is enough to make me forgive some of the book's flaws, including, but not limited to the following: 1. the author [poorly] uses dialogue to move her story forward and reveal everyone's thoughts about everything, having all the characters deliver loooonng speeches to make their opinions known - the dialogues, unfortunately, come across as being [to me, anyway] very inauthentic & unrealistic. 2. The narrative moves in jerks and starts. ie. in the middle of a chapter, after having spent several chapters developing the protagonist's journey to a high school education, the author abruptly advances the narrative ahead 4 years to graduation ceremonies. But, like I said, I'm totally willing to overlook the weaknesses, because this was a thoroughly enjoyable little book. (btw, this was a free Kindle upload)

Freckles by Gene Stratton Porter. meh. 'twas just ok for me. the book that comes before A Girl of the Limberlost ...

The Chalk Girl by Carol O'Connell. the latest book in my all-time fav mystery/suspense series. loved it. I may have to start this series over, way back at the beginning, while awaiting the next one ...

Reread To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Y'know how sometimes when you reread a favorite years after you've first read it, it's somehow just less than you remember it being? I needn't have feared that happening with TKAM. It's still awesome.

The Princess and the Goblin & The Princess and Curdie by George MacDonald - there's a reason C.S. Lewis holds George MacDonald in such high regard.  These were both beautiful stories.

Distant Land of my Father by Bo Caldwell.  This was a $1 download for Kindle.  Interesting story, well told.

The 13 Clocks by James Thurber.  Quirky, funny, Fairy-tale-meets-The-Phantom-Tollbooth.  I laughed my way through it, and then read it aloud to my younger dudes over breakfast for a couple weeks.  Totally enjoyable.  Thanks, Heidi, for the recommendation!

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy.  Meh.  Not my cuppa.  Not really sure why this particular book is considered classic, except that perhaps it was the first "ordinary man as a masked superhero"?  Anywhoo, this was picked by my bookclub.  Free Kindle download :-).

Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse. One of Middle Dude's school books that I'd never heard of. So I read it. And it's quite good. Free prose (not usually my preference) - but it very nicely "fits" the frugality, sparseness and quiet desperateness of the dust bowl years.

The False Prince by Jennifer Nielsen.  YA book that Middle Dude read and passed on to me.  Enjoyable & quick reading, if a bit predictable.  The characters were all a little too "modern" feeling to be medieval-ish times.  And the biggest flaw:  written in first person narrative (except for a jarring 1-2 chapter switch to omniscient 3rd person observer), but first person was telling the narrative while keeping "secrets" (which, truth be told, weren't very secret).

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway (the original, not "restored" edition).  I did NOT like this.  At all.  It was my bookclub's selection.  And, as it's almost un-American not to revere Hemingway, I thought that perhaps it was just this book of his that I didn't like.  So I picked up ...

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway.  But I also did NOT like that book.  So I'm hereby giving up Hemingway for ever.  And ever.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle.  The newest pick for my bookclub.  Free Kindle download.  Because a couple of our club members have seen and loved the BBC Sherlock series (myself included), we decided to delve into Conan Doyle's original character.  Fun, light reading.  Fun to compare Doyle's Sherlock to the BBC thoroughly modern Sherlock.

The Story Girl by L.M. Montgomery.  Gosh, Ann of Green Gables is one of my favorite books.  Ever.  And L.M. Montgomery claims that The Story Girl is her favorite book that she wrote.  So, it was a no-brainer for me to read, right?  I came to the conclusion that it must be her favorite for sentimental reasons (it's highly autobiographical; Lucy *is* the Story Girl).  I did not like this story, Sam-I-Am.  I did not like it at all. In the words of BBC-Sherlock, "Bor-ing."  I skimmed.  Heavily.  And finally stopped reading a few chapters before the ending.  Never finished.  That's how much I wasn't into The Story Girl (despite it being a sweet, innocent, old-fashioned telling of a charming childhood.  just not enough plot for me.)

Night by Elie Wiesel (edition translated by Marion Wiesel).  First person Holocaust narrative.  This sparsely-told, powerfully written book should be a "must read" for every. single. person.

Mallory's Oracle by Carol O'Connell.  I did decide to start this wonderful series over again at the beginning. My summer reading :-).  One of the things I really remember enjoying about the first (four?) books is the larger inclusion of the offbeat-funny-smart-diverse-quick-witted supporting cast of characters (mostly the close friends of Mallory's deceased adoptive dad).  In this first book, Charles (one of my favorite characters from the series, one who seemingly has a smaller and smaller role as the series gets further along) was a "starring role".  Fun to get reacquainted with him.  And the earlier Mallory.

Happy Thanksgiving

WHEREAS, It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor;

WHEREAS, Both the houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted' for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have show kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

--George Washington - October 3, 1789

Grammy.

I feel like I've been saying painful "goodbyes" to my Grammy for the past several years. Dementia (Alzheimer's?) is a cruel beast. But yesterday, with family and friends, I said a much-less painful goodbye as we all celebrated the wonder that was my Grammy...



If I had photographs in my hands of some of the memories in my head, these are the pictures I’d have of Grammy:

Sharing my bedroom with her whenever she visited; listening to late night stories of the “Get-Hot-Stay-Hot Girls” and their adventures on Catalina Island.

Collecting shells on the beach and collecting the prettiest rocks from the River to add to our “rock garden” behind the wash house.

Going out on the boat waterskiing in the morning & evening with Papa as the driver/instructor and Grammy as the cheerleader/flag-holder.

Swinging from the dock ramp in the River to cool herself off, before heading back to her homemade mesh deck chair in the shade with crazy flies everywhere, drinking beer in a can surrounded by styrofome insulation, talking and laughing with everyone, playing backgammon.

Sleeping under the beautiful quilt that Grammy made me from scraps of material she’d saved from all the clothing she sewed for me over the years.

Hair blowing everywhere as we drive back from Havasu in the Hornet with the windows rolled down (y’know, A/C against those 100+ degree days) and the coolers filled with food we’d bargain shopped & couponed for from 3 different stores.

Making dozens of batches of chocolate chip cookies with her, and still not being able to duplicate exactly the same yummy taste. Everyone always accused her of holding back a secret ingredient. I think it was just her love.

Watching Wheel of Fortune each night, always trying to beat her to solving the puzzle, which was, of course, nearly impossible. Grammy was a gaming, puzzling fiend. Agonizing & whining while tv wasted time with contestants spending their winnings on such treasures as the ceramic Dalmatian.

Getting up early to clean trailers in the cool of the day (y’know 98* instead of 112*). Hanging the sheets to dry on the line, knowing it wouldn’t take too long, and dreading putting back together those horrid bunkbeds.

Watching Grammy suck-up ceiling spiders and their ever-present webs with her hand-held vacuum.

Eating homemade cherry pie while calling Mom and saying “Mmmmm…..” So cruel.

Walking to Macs Market in the evening, knowing Grammy would probably spring for a popsicle.

Lingering over the breakfast table. Picking a coffee mug from the wall rack. Knowing someone in the park would always drop by and grab a mug and join us for a while. Grammy’s hospitality knew no bounds.

Playing cards morning, noon & late night. All manner of cards: Fish, Kings in the Corner, Gin Rummy, Rummy 500, Garbage, Spite and Malice, Hearts, Spades, Canasta … Knowing I would likely lose. Being careful NOT to sit in front of the mirror or the reflective window. Not that Grammy would cheat, mind you. But DJ might. ;-)

Crafts, crafts and more crafts. (which is funny, because I don’t really like crafts now. But I surely loved them then). Cross stitching, fancy yarn hangers, yarn potholders & placemats, hook rugs, yarn chairs (we went thru a LOT of yarn …), painted t-shirts…

Bingo over at B&B. In the days before they cracked down on minors “gambling”. Oh, those penny stakes …

Papa daily making Xerox copies of the crossword puzzles, because he and Grammy both needed their own.

Food. Always the FOOD. Food to feed armies. Spaghetti, chicken tortilla casserole, lasagna, enchiladas, green salad with Papa’s special dressing, cherry pie, jello-poke cakes, orange rolls …

Grammy always present for all the biggie events: all the graduations, weddings, great-grandbabies’ arrivals… Gosh, I feel like an era's come to an end. I miss her.

Sorted, sundry books ...

my list from the last several months:

The Magician's Elephant by Kate DiCamillo - charming, spare, minimal, magical, delightful, quirky, sweet.

The Miracle at Speedy Motors by Alexander McCall Smith - the latest in the No. 1 Detective Ladies Agency. fun, light reading.

The Jesse Tree by Geraldine McCaughrean - our ordered copy was backordered for months, so we didn't read this collection of stories til Spring time. I look forward to re-reading this book at Christmas time (little short stories from Old Testament & New Testament, each foretelling the birth of Jesus).

Vilette by Charlotte Bronte - I wanted to like this one, because Jane Eyre is one of my all-time favorites; but alas, I did not enjoy this book. There was just not a single character (or at least not a character that took up a significant portion of the book) that I liked. Altho, I did find this book to be interesting from an analysis perspective (many claim that it was written as a complementary companion story of sorts to Jane Eyre).

The Kite Rider by Geraldine McCaughrean - fantasy fairytale-ish story written around the historical period of 13th Century China. Enjoyed it.

The Dean's Watch by Elizabeth Goudge. (thank you to Heidi for passing this book on to me) Remarkably well-drawn characters. I re-read entire sections just because the development/description of the character at hand was so well & so intricately done. However, the broken-jump-around presentation of the storyline itself just about drove me batty. Nonetheless, a worthwhile read.

Some thriller by Lisa Scottoline - bleh. ordinary. not terribly sophisticated. won't be reading any of her others.

A Death in Vienna by Daniel Silva - thriller/"pulp fiction" genre. wrapped around a powerful Holocaust background story. well-written. I'll probably read more from Silva.

The True Story of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphy - hmmmm. another story developed around the Holocaust. not entirely sure how to describe this book. I did NOT like or enjoy it. Parts of it were extremely artistically, beautifully done. Other parts were horrific (duh, Holocaust), but I would argue, gratuitously horrific.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery - the perfect book for my last roadtrip. Good story, good characters. I did liberally skim entire sections (the sections meant to prove to me a certain character's intellect. I was willing to accept her "smarts" on the author's word; didn't want to slog thru the "proof". smirk).

Broken for You by Stephanie Kallos - such an original, quirky, delightful book that I was willing to overlook one of my biggest literary pet peeves -- when an author changes narrative voice/perspective mid-scene...

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson - I detested this book on too many levels to enumerate (which is a shame, because I was counting on bringing books 2&3 on our next vacation. Now I need to find something else!). I vented my frustration on one irritating element on Facebook, and quite a discussion resulted. I'll cut & paste some of it here ...

Me: I'm soooo irritated. I've never before read a book with blatant advertising written into the narrative. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo's editor/publisher should be ashamed of themselves. So jarring and intrusive. Dislike. Intensely.

Me, follow up, citing example of above rant: "The rucksack contained her white Apple iBook 600 with a 25-gig hard drive and 420 megs of RAM, manufactured in Jan 2002 and equipped with a 14-in screen..." [narrative goes on ad nauseum about death of said iBook - by car running over it, NOT internal failure, duh - and about her backup 5yo Toshiba, but how she needed a "fast, modern machine" and how] "Unsurprisingly she set her sights onf the best available alternative: the new Apple PowerBook G4/1.0 GHz in an aluminum case with a PowerPC 7451 processor with an AltiVec Velocity Engine, 960 MB RAM and a 60 GB hard drive. It had BlueTooth and built-in CD and DVD burners. Best of all, it had the first 17in screen in the laptop world with NVIDIA graphics and resolution of 1440x900 pixels, which shook the PC advocates and outranked everything else on the market."

A few commenters offered possible reasons. And then my brother {Hi Bro!], with all his sarcasm, jumped in and suggested that with the onslaught of TIVO that "ad execs have to get creative. As long as my Apple shares keep rising, I am cool with it."

Me: bite your tongue! The ends (=Apple ads in TGWTDT) do not justify the means (=$$ in your pocket) in this situation!!!! We already live in a society saturated with marketing efforts (on tv, radio, billboards, advertising screens at gas/dr./dentist/grocery-check-outs, unsolicited junk mail & email, in movies, at the beginning of dvds, etc). I do NOT welcome advertising in "literature". At all.

Bro: But with the extra money I can buy more books ;-)

[ok, I must admit, this *IS* compelling reasoning ... snort]

Bro: By the way, I think all your friends should buy IPhones, IPads and Mac Books. Great products everyone should have ;-P

So, there you have it. My brother (an APPL shareholder), and apparently the publishers of TGWTDT, want you to buy Apple. I don't care if you buy Apple or not. I just don't recommend buying ... or begging/borrowing/stealing, much less reading ... The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Ick, blech, phtooey. If you want a good Pulp-Fiction Thriller, get Mallory's Oracle (and the rest of the series) by Carol O'Connell.

Oh, and since we've just had a discussion on [unwelcome] advertising, in full disclosure ... I am NOT paid for my literary endorsements!! These opinions are wholely & unbiasedly mine.

Words of Wisdom.

From throughout history.

For such a time as this.

Because History is an immeasurably valuable teacher.

And because I think America is at a precipitous crossroad as our government willingly exchanges our freedom for so-called "security."

And so here are some quotes; quotes far more eloquent than anything I could piece together. Said and/or written by people far smarter than I, with far greater powers of observation than I. Words that, in my opinion, resonate with truth and exhortation, warning us about the delicacy of democracy.

[these quotations are in no particular order, with the exception that the first boatload of them comes from Thomas Jefferson]

Thomas Jefferson: “I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”

“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”

“Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms (of government) those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny”

“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”

“One single object...[will merit] the endless gratitude of the society: that of restraining the judges from usurping legislation.”

“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.”

“The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.”

“I, however, place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared.”

“Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.”

“The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government”

“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”

“Governments (derive) their just powers from the consent of the governed”

“For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.”

“Delay is preferable to error.”

To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.

A wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?

and from others ...

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. - C.S. Lewis

It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones. – Calvin Coolidge

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery. – Winston Churchill

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul, can always count on the support of Paul. – George Bernard Shaw

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. – John Adams (1814)

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin

There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him. – Robert Heinlein

[On ancient Athens]: In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again. – Edward Gibbon

If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government that is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. – James Madison

Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters. – Daniel Webster

Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom. – Albert Einstein

The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government – lest it come to dominate our lives and interests. – Patrick Henry

Government does not grow by seizing our freedoms, but by assuming our responsibilities. – Michael Cloud

The government is good at one thing. It knows how to break your legs, and then hand you a crutch and say, "See if it weren't for the government, you wouldn't be able to walk". – Harry Browne

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place. – Mohandas Gandhi

The true danger is when Liberty is nibbled away, for expedients. – Edmund Burke

Liberty is not a means to a political end. It is itself the highest political end. – Lord Acton

QUOTES...

that make me think, or laugh, or nod my head, or that I just like for whatever reason.

Thou wilt make known to me the path of life; in Thy presence is fulness of joy; in Thy right hand there are pleasures forever. Psalm 16:11

Fairy tales don't tell children that dragons exist, children already know that. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be killed. G. K. Chesterton

"A room without books is like a body without a soul." Cicero

"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can"t read them." Mark Twain

Do not be hasty in word or impulsive in thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God. For God is in heaven and you are on the earth; therefore let your words be few. Ecclesiastes 5:2

Sometimes I do get to places just when God"s ready to have somebody click the shutter. Ansel Adams

No man can be called friendless who has God and the companionship of good books. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How shall we become lovely? By loving Him who is ever lovely. Augustine

Among all the redeemed in glory there is not one who looks back and sees that on earth there was any mistake in the divine conduct towards him. God does all things well. William S. Plumer

It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt. Mark Twain

When I get a little money, I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes. Erasmus

We must form our minds by reading deep rather than wide. Quintilian

We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking. Mark Twain

six hoc adfixum in obice legere potes, et liberaliter educatus et nimis propinquus ades. (translation: If you can read this bumper sticker, you are very well educated and much too close.) :-)

There may often be excuse for doing things poorly in this world, but there is never any excuse for calling a poorly done thing well done."-- W. E. B. DuBois

A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself. The larger the denominator, the smaller the fraction. - Tolstoy

It was clear that the books owned the shop rather than the other way about. Everywhere they had run wild and taken possession of their habitat, breeding and multiplying and clearly lacking any strong hand to keep them down. ~ Agatha Christie

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. ~ Albert Einstein

A dead thing goes with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it. ~ G. K. Chesterton

Opportunity is missed by most people because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work. ~ Thomas Edison

"to me, photography is an art of observation. it's about finding something interesting in an ordinary place... i've found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them." ~ elliott erwitt

Thou hast created us for Thyself, and our heart is not quiet until it rests in Thee.
~Saint Augustine

[There is a] difference between a pretty picture and an important picture. Anna Kuperberg

"Miracles do not cluster. Hold on to the Constitution of the United States of America and the republic for which it stands. —What has happened once in six thousand years may never happen again. Hold on to your Constitution, for if the American Constitution shall fail there will be anarchy throughout the world." ~Daniel Webster

"Some people, in order to discover God, read books. But there is a great book: the very appearance of created things. Look above you! Look below you! Read it. God, whom you want to discover, never wrote that book with ink. Instead He set before your eyes the things that He had made. Can you ask for a louder voice than that?”
— St. Augustine (354-430)

"I am a product [...of] endless books. My father bought all the books he read and never got rid of any of them. There were books in the study, books in the drawing room, books in the cloakroom, books (two deep) in the great bookcase on the landing, books in a bedroom, books piled as high as my shoulder in the cistern attic, books of all kinds reflecting every transient stage of my parents' interest, books readable and unreadable, books suitable for a child and books most emphatically not. Nothing was forbidden me. In the seemingly endless rainy afternoons I took volume after volume from the shelves. I had always the same certainty of finding a book that was new to me as a man who walks into a field has of finding a new blade of grass." ~ C.S. Lewis

Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still. ~Dorothea Lange

Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass. It's about learning to dance in the rain. ~ author unknown

“There is no way to be a perfect mother, and a million ways to be a good one” – Jill Churchill

"Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair." G.K. Chesterton

“Photography is about savoring life at 1/100th of a second.” French Photographer Marc Riboud

"A thing that you see in my pictures is that I was not afraid to fall in love with these people." - Annie Leibovitz

"I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there; in her fertile fields and boundless prairies, and it was not there; in her rich mines and her vast world commerce, and it was not there. Not until I went to the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great." ~ Alexis de Tocqueville

‎"Avoid making a commotion, just as you wouldn’t stir up the water before fishing. Don’t use a flash out of respect for the natural lighting, even when there isn’t any. If these rules aren’t followed, the photographer becomes unbearably obtrusive." - Henri Cartier-Bresson

"He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed." ~Albert Einstein

“This benefit of seeing ... can come only if you pause a while, extricate yourself from the maddening mob of quick impressions ceaselessly battering our lives, and look thoughtfully...” ~ Dorothea Lange

Time stands still best in moments that look suspiciously like ... ordinary life.  (as seen on a Pinterest poster)

“Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart” - A.A. Milne

The supreme happiness in life is the conviction that we are loved.  - Victor Hugo

“You can look at a picture for a week and never think of it again. You can also look at a picture for a second and think of it all your life.” ― Joan Miró

"If you have good thoughts, they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely."   Roald Dahl in The Twits

Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible.  ~Paul Klee

It's not what you look at that matters; it's what you see. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Photography, like life, happens only in the present, and when we’re at our best we practice a craft, and create art that points people to the most astonishing, beautiful, and human moments – the ones that happen in a sliver, almost a moment within a moment, and are gone. We freeze the light and shadow of these moments into a likeness that allows us to look at, and remember, these moments long after they pass, and in so doing to say, ‘This moment matters.’ It’s important. It reminds us that as we live our moments, even the briefest of them, so we live our lives.   ~David duChemin

There is a sunrise and a sunset every day and you can choose to be there for it. You can put yourself in the way of beauty.  ~ Bobbi, Lambrecht, Cheryl Strayed's mom

Notes from Peter-John Courson's message of Rogue Grace ... My conclusion to the entire narrative of Scripture: Two Laws separated by one Great Divide. This is how one “rightly divides the Word of God”.  “The Two” are two laws, one being the Law of Sin and Death and the other the Law of Spirit and Life. Through the first, one seeks to be justified. In the other, one knows they have already been.  From Eden to Revelation these two Laws are all there is. Scripture graciously uses a myriad of ways to describe this dichotomy of these two laws: stone and flesh, darkness and light, old and new, cursing and blessing, death and life, Egypt and Canaan, ect. Yet it always comes down to “The Two”.

Question: So the christian life is not about climbing the ladder of salvation? Many people find that to difficult to accept…… they say they believe in grace, but it must be balanced. ~JT
Response: Balanced Grace! That is the Christian Killer. It’s poison. It has neutralized both the Law and Grace, taking the edge away from both. There were “Believing Pharisees” in the Book of Acts, we must not be the same. ~Peter-John Courson

The contemplation of things as they are, without substitution or imposture, without error or confusion, is in itself a nobler thing than a whole harvest of invention. Francis Bacon

"There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from him. And the higher and mightier it is in the natural order, the more demoniac it will be if it rebels. It’s not out of bad mice or bad fleas you make demons, but out of bad archangels. The false religion of lust is baser than the false religion of mother-love or patriotism or art: but lust is less likely to be made into a religion.”  C.S. Lewis in The Great Divorce

"Both good and evil, when they are full grown, become retrospective…That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporary suffering, ‘No future bliss can make up for it,’ not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say ‘Let me but have this and I’ll take the consequences’: little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin.” ... “That is why, at the end of all things, when the sun rises here and the twilight turns to blackness down there, the Blessed will say, “we have never lived anywhere except in heaven,’ and the Lost, “We were always in Hell.” And both will speak truly.”  C.S. Lewis in The Great Divorce

"A sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on.”  ...  “Evil can be undone, but it cannot ‘develop’ into good. Time does not heal it.”  C.S. Lewis in The Great Divorce

"When you painted on earth – at least in your earlier days – it was because you caught glimpses of heaven in the earthly landscape. The success of your painting was that it enabled others to see the glimpses too.”   C.S. Lewis in The Great Divorce

“Some things are more precious because they don’t last long.” -Oscar Wilde

"It does not take much to make us realize what fools we are, but the little it takes is long in coming. I see my ridiculous self by degrees." ~Flannery O'Connor

"Why would God require, desire, or even accept a sacrificial substitute? How is such a concept remotely just? The short answer is that God fulfilled His own terms of justice and mercy Himself... because He loves us... and because we couldn't do it for ourselves." ~Brett Bonecutter, The Pajama Philosopher

"... in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods, and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books. Instant information is not for me. I prefer to search library stacks because when I work to learn something, I remember it...  can you imagine curling up in bed to read a computer? Weeping for Anna Karenina and being terrified by Hannibal Lecter, entering the heart of darkness with Mistah Kurtz, having Holden Caulfield ring you up — some things should happen on soft pages, not cold metal."  Harper Lee in a letter to Oprah Winfrey


"The defense of Planned Parenthood in light of what has been revealed is almost as disturbing as the mound of body parts - because a moral vacuum can never be contained to the one little corner of life you don't mind it in; it always expands." ~Mark Steyn, commenting re: PP videos demonstrating the harvesting of baby organs

“The sorry religious novel comes about when the writer supposes that, because of his belief, he is somehow dispensed from the obligation to penetrate concrete reality . . . . But the real novelist, the one with an instinct for what he is about, knows that he cannot approach the infinite directly, that he must penetrate the natural human world as it is.”  ~ Flannery O'Connor



"Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. 'Pooh!' he whispered. 'Yes, Piglet?' 'Nothing,' said Piglet, taking Pooh's paw. 'I just wanted to be sure of you."  ~A. A. Milne

"If you live to be 100, I hope I live to be 100 minus one day, so I never have to live without you." ~ A. A. Milne“The value of a college education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think.” ~ Albert Einstein (quoted in the New York Times, 1921)

"If God makes the world, populates the world, infuses the world with every kind of ethical meaning, then the signature of God is the beauty of the world. Why even imagine a mystical experience when we’re born into one, submerged in one, day after day?" ~ Marilynne Robinson

"I am almost inclined to set it up as a canon that a children’s story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children’s story."  ~C.S. Lewis

“Grace and gratitude belong together like heaven and earth.Grace evokes gratitude like the voice an echo.Gratitude follows grace as thunder follows lightening.”  ~Karl Barth

"The best thing about a picture is that it never changes, even when the people in it do."  ~Andy Warhol

"In the work of a writer of genius, we rediscover our own neglected thoughts."  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild.” ~ G.K. Chesterton

“The Iliad is only great because all life is a battle, The Odyssey because all life is a journey, The Book of Job because all life is a riddle.” - G.K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday

"Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important."  —C.S. Lewis


"Nothing teaches us the preciousness of the Creator as much as when we learn the emptiness of everything else."  ~Charles Spurgeon

"Redemption is meaningless unless there is a cause for it in the actual life we live, and for the last few centuries there has been operating in our culture the secular belief that there is no such cause." ~Flannery O'Connor

"Fable is more historical than fact, because fact tells us about one man and fable tells us about a million men."  ~G.K. Chesterton

"It would be against God’s character to give us a promise that our children will be saved if we raise them in a certain way. That would mean that he was telling us to trust in something other than Christ and his grace and mercy." ~Elyse Fitzpatrick

“When people look at my pictures, I want them to feel the way they do when they want to read a line of a poem twice.” ~ Robert Frank

"Lord, You know better than I know myself that I am getting older and will someday be old. Keep me from... the fatal habit of thinking I must say something in every subject and on every occasion. Release me from craving to straighten out everybody's affairs. Make me thoughtful but not moody, helpful but not bossy. With my vast store of wisdom it seems a pity not to use it all, but You know, Lord, that I want a few friends at the end. Keep my mind from the recital of endless details-give me wings to come to the point. Seal my lips on my aches and pains. They are increasing, and my love of rehearsing them is becoming sweeter. I dare not ask for grace enough to enjoy the tales of others' pains, but help me to endure the with patience. I dare not ask for improved memory, but for a growing humility and a lessening cocksureness when my memory seems to clash with the memories of others. Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally I will be mistaken. Keep me reasonably sweet. I do not want to be a saint-some of them are so hard to live with-but a sour old woman is one of the crowning works of the devil. Give me the ability to see good things in unexpected places, and talents in unexpected people. And give me the grace to tell them so."  Elizabeth Elliot in Gateway to Joy, via MizBooshay's blog

"In almost every major literature there are works that make you love being human, and make you love and revere the humanity of other people. That is the great potential of any art."  ~Marilynne Robinson

"It has seemed to me sometimes as though the Lord breathes on this poor gray ember of Creation and it turns to radiance - for a moment or a year or the span of a life... ~Marilynne Robinson