Don't Have A Cold Heart

"Look around you, look up here
Take time to make time, make time to be there
Look around, be a part
Feel for the winter, but don't have a cold heart"

lyrics from "Lady"
by The Little River Band

**************************************
Snow
Once with my scarf knotted over my mouth
I lumbered into a storm of snow up the long hill
and did not know where I was going except to the top of it.
In those days we went out like that.
Even children went out like that. . . .

And it was a big one. It would come down and down
for days. . . .

That was the deepest
I ever went into the snow. . . .

from the poem Snow
by Naomi Shihab Nye (b 1952)
Contemporary Palestinian / American Poet
found in her book Fuel

For more Cold Morning Poems by Naomi Shihab Nye
see The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
Latest Blog Post: February 14, 2011

Icy Valentine

Happy Valentine's Day:
"Come and Sit By My Side if You Love Me"
A wintry love poem by Naomi Shihab Nye:

I would be no one.
I would have no head, no hair, no comb.

I would be the thin mist in the air of a cold morning;
I would rise and disappear early, before the sun
and the noisy streets and everyone moving.

I would hum and greet you when you awaken,
with no words, no face, no promise but my love,
like a river.

I would be here, be here, be here invisible, forever --
when all the braver ones have gone to hide --
when all these tears have years and years been dried.

For more Cold Morning Poems by Naomi Shihab Nye
see The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
New Blog Post: February 14, 2011

Ordinary Objects, Ordinary Time

Clay Sculpture
featured in the
St. Louis Post Dispatch, mid - 1970's

Back in highschool, maybe even junior high, I cut this clipping of a crayon sculpture out the "everyday" section of the Post - Dispatch. I kept it safely in a folder of "favorites" until about halfway through college when I took it out and glued it onto the cover of one of my notebooks -- as seen above.

I have treasured it all these years without even knowing the name of the artist or the exhibit / museum it was in. I guess I should have saved the article that went with the picture!

***************************************
I've always liked the way that this little patch of the year between Christmas and Lent is called Ordinary Time. One ordinary day after the next descends upon us, as the fun times recede first into the recent, then into the distant past. We mark the time. The light changes. What will happen next?

My most recent Fortnightly Blog, January: Forward Vision, Backward Glance is about our ever - changing perspective of what is ordinary, as is the featured blog of my friend Ann de Forest -- the timely and time - conscious Obsolescing: watching technologies as they wane.

If you haven't had a chance yet, why not take a moment now to check out Ann's January response and to look at one of my favorite essays from the "Obsolescing" archives, The Kindly Mirrors of Future Times, which includes this passage from Vladimir Nabokov, so applicable to the goal of my Quotidian blogposts:

"I think that here lies the sense of literary creation: to portray ordinary objects as they will be reflected in the kindly mirrors of future times; to find in the objects around us the fragrant tenderness that only posterity will discern and appreciate in far-off times when every trifle of our plain everyday life will become exquisite and festive in its own right: the times when a man who might put on the most ordinary jacket of today will be dressed up for an elegant masquerade."

[Vladimir Nabokov, “A Guide to Berlin”
(first published, in Russian, in 1925;
later translated by Nabokov and his son Dimitri
and included in the 1976 collection,
Details of a Sunset and Other Stories.]
I particularly like Ann's concluding observation: "As a writer, I’m particularly intrigued by what Nabokov seems to be asserting about the writer’s (or any artist’s) task – to be present and alert to the current commonplace, to record it in specific detail, and thus preserve it for a future audience’s enraptured rediscovery."

Her response to Nabokov speaks to my heart as a beautifully succinct summation of the quotations (up above & to the right -> -> ->) that I have chosen to govern the Quotidian Kit:

realizing every minute (Wilder)
spreading the big ideas over the daily bread (Duval)
looking for the beautiful in the small (Kant)
finding significance in the commonplace (Woolf).

NEW FORTNIGHTLY BLOG POST TOMORROW!
~ VALENTINE'S DAY ~
"Cold Morning Poems by Naomi Shihab"

With a Stroke of Her Paw

Portrait of Pierri Loti & Cat, 1905 - 06
by French artist, Henri Rousseau (1844 - 1910)

If by chance I seated myself to write,
she very slyly, very tenderly,
seeking protection and caresses,
would softly take her place on my knee
and follow the comings and goings of my pen--
sometimes effacing with an unintentional stroke of her paw,
lines of whose tenor she disapproved.

~ Pierri Loti (1850 - 1923) ~
French novelist and naval officer
Beaumont does this too! Sometimes curling up quietly to sleep in my lap while I type -- but other times inadvertently sending an email, erasing a line of text, or re-configuring my keyboard while pouncing or prancing across the counter-top. What larks!

Detail

Paw Prints

Josef (1988 - 2007)

"If a cat did not put a firm paw down now and then,
how could his human remain possessed?"

~ Winifred Carriere ~
American writer, known for her cat quotes
Look at Josef! Such a little genius! One snowy afternoon, the kids decorated this box for him and stuck him inside. (I missed it out in the photograph, but just above his head, it says "Josef's House.") How did he know precisely where to step? Right in the paw prints that they had drawn for him!

Even as I write this, my little cat Beaumont is sitting by the keyboard, reaching out to pat my arm, reminding me to stop typing and give her a treat! She's a genius too! Here she is, just waiting for her chance to write the first word in my new Liberty Print Journal:

"She darts out a paw, and begins plucking it
and inquiring into the matter . . .
What a graceful action of that foot is hers,
between delicacy and petulance!
-- combining something of a thrust out,
a beat and a scratch."

~ Leigh Hunt ~
English essayist and poet
~ Beaumont also drinks water from her own little cup and saucer ~

~ Iced Tea in the Summertime ~

Bridge of Air

Bridge of ConcreteVintage Postcard of the Henry Avenue Bridge
over the Wissahickon Creek, Philadelphia
Erected in 1932, masonry construction, 915 feet long, 84 feet wide
185 feet above water level in Wissahickon Creek
One of the most beautiful bridges in Philadelphia --
connecting Roxborough and Germantown.
In her comments about poet Czeslaw Milosz (click or scroll down) my friend Beata describes life in the United States after her immigration from Poland as "a different world . . . a different market, a different air," stretching across the vast distance between her two lives. Of her fellow countryman Milosz, she observes that his writing "helped me to build and cross my invisible bridge above the Atlantic Ocean."

Bridge imagery, similar to that in Beata's reminiscence, can also be found in Seamus Heaney's eulogy of Czeslaw Milosz:

"Somewhere, for example, he compares a poem to a bridge built out of air over air, and one of the great delights of his work is a corresponding sensation of invigilating reality from a head-clearing perspective, being liberated into the authentic solitude of one's own being and at the same time being given gratifying spiritual companionship, so that one is ready to say something like 'It is good for us to be here.'

"Milosz was well aware of this aspect of his work and explicit about his wish that poetry in general should be capable of providing such an elevated plane of regard."

***************************
I am not entirely sure which work Heaney had in mind, but here are a couple of poems containing memorable bridge imagery:

#1
On Prayer
You ask me how to pray to someone who is not.
All I know is that prayer constructs a velvet bridge
And walking it we are aloft, as on a springboard,
Above landscapes the color of ripe gold
Transformed by a magic stopping of the sun.
That bridge leads to the shore of Reversal
Where everything is just the opposite and the word 'is'
Unveils a meaning we hardly envisioned.
Notice: I say we; there, every one, separately,
Feels compassion for others entangled in the flesh
And knows that if there is no other shore
We will walk that aerial bridge all the same.


#2
Dedication
You whom I could not save
Listen to me.
Try to understand this simple speech as I would be ashamed of another.
I swear, there is in me no wizardry of words.
I speak to you with silence like a cloud or a tree.

What strengthened me, for you was lethal.
You mixed up farewell to an epoch with the beginning of a new one,
Inspiration of hatred with lyrical beauty,
Blind force with accomplished shape.

Here is the valley of shallow Polish rivers. And an immense bridge
Going into white fog. Here is a broken city,
And the wind throws the screams of gulls on your grave
When I am talking with you.

What is poetry which does not save
Nations or people?
A connivance with official lies,
A song of drunkards whose throats will be cut in a moment,
Readings for sophomore girls.
That I wanted good poetry without knowing it,
That I discovered, late, its salutary aim,
In this and only this I find salvation.

They used to pour millet on graves or poppy seeds
To feed the dead who would come disguised as birds.
I put this book here for you, who once lived
So that you should visit us no more.

both poems by Czeslaw Milosz
[emphasis added]

Czeslaw Milosz

World - Class Poets:
Czeslaw Milosz and Seamus Heaney
[photo source]
My Polish born friend, Beata, occasionally asks me to help her with her American English, but as you will see from her prose below, she already has a beautiful grasp of the language.

Last summer, I sent Beata a short email after a weekend visit from three of my five siblings, telling her that I was feeling blue because the house felt so empty after their departure.

She wrote back to say: "Kitti, You are so lucky! I don't have any siblings and no one comes to me because we live sooo far away from the family. And it is tooo expensive for them to come. If we meet it is always like walking on the high wire. I wish for just a normal, regular, informal visit."

And I replied: "Thank you so much for reminding me of my good fortune. It made me think of this poem, that you might already know:

My - ness
My parents, my husband, my brother, my sister . . .
I delight in being here on earth
For one more moment, with them, here on earth,
To celebrate our tiny, tiny my-ness.

by Polish poet, Czeslaw Milosz"
[see previous post: January 24, 2010]
To which Beata responded:

"Thank you for your email, Kitti. The poet you've mentioned is dear to my heart. At the time of the Solidarity Revolt, he was on the list of prohibited authors. When I was in Poland I used to buy his books on the black market, and they were very, very expensive. Being able to catch them on an illegal sale was delightful and made me feel as if someone had put me on the wave of a breeze of independency. I dreamed about a free world and a free Poland.

"When I arrived in the United States, I saw these same books on the shelves of a Slavic bookstore in Palo Alto. No one was rushing to have them; there was no elbow pushing to get to them or neck stretching to see if some copies were left. I asked myself: 'Where is the breeze of independency? Where are the people who want to read the works of Czeslaw Milosz? Why are people are not forming a line to buy his books?'

"And then it came to me that I was now INSIDE of independency! I did not need to rush or look around suspiciously for somebody who wanted to catch me red - handed buying illegal, independent books. I had these books NEXT to me, available, ready. I was free to read them in a free world . . . I had only to stretch my arm and reach my wallet.

"I realized that I was in not only a different world but also a different market, a different air. I felt a strange happiness to be in America but also a great distance. That air separated my spirit, like a wounded soldier taken by his fellows from the battlefield, blessed to be saved but longing to return for another fight, or a legless invalid who could hear church bells calling him to pray for a miracle . . . but there was no way to get there. Still, I could hear the sweet sound of bells ringing in afternoon sunshine, falling peacefully, on a quiet town.

"I was also very lucky to see Czeslaw Milosz in person. He went to the same church in Berkeley. He looked serious, composed, and I never saw him talking to other people. He liked to sit in the middle of the pew, not far from the altar, and usually stayed there alone. He rarely looked around, and usually disappeared quickly after the mass was over while the other people socialized and exchanged greetings.

"I remember hearing that his wife had died not long before and that he preferred to stay very private. I think perhaps he wanted to stay iconic, historical, and in the shadow. Many times I thought about approaching to ask for his autograph (I planned to leave the service earlier and wait for him) but we moved to Massachusetts before I worked up the nerve, and the opportunity was lost. Still, I think he helped me to build and cross my invisible bridge above the Atlantic Ocean."

[Thanks to Beata
for sharing these amazing thoughts and memories.]
Gravestone of Czeslaw Milosz, 1911 -2004
Polish Poet and Essayist
Became an American Citizen, 1970
Won the Nobel Prize in Literature, 1980

Click for more good poems by Czelaw Milosz

*****************************************
Learning:
To believe you are magnificent.
And gradually to discover that you are not magnificent.
Enough labor for one human life.

Consolation:
Calm down.
Both your sins and your good deeds will be lost in oblivion.

Esse:
I was left behind with the immensity of existing things.
A sponge, suffering because it cannot saturate itself;
a river, suffering because reflections of clouds and trees
are not clouds and trees.

Click for more good quotations by Czeslaw Milosz

Prognosticator's Dilemma

Cute Kids' Book, Available on Amazon
It's not easy being a Groundhog on February 2nd . . . or a School Superintendent the night before a Snow Day! With his usual veritas and hilaritas, Brian Andreas captures the dilemma of the prognosticator:

"I'm best at predicting the old year,
she said, & you'd be surprised how many
people are even skeptical about that"

www.storypeople.com*

HAPPY GROUNDHOG DAY!

*One StoryPeople reader shares this from Peanuts:

Linus:
"I guess it's wrong always to be worrying about tomorrow.
Maybe we should think only about today."

Charlie Brown:
"No, that's giving up. I'm still hoping that yesterday will get better."

So irrational, yet, so hard to stop hoping for that better past . . .

Wise Lily Tomlin says:
"Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past."

And Anne Lamott's version, just slightly different:
"Forgiveness means giving up all hope of having had a better past."

One more from Charlie Brown:
Charlie Brown:
"I keep having these tiny self doubts . . . do you think this is wrong?"

Lucy:
"Of course it's wrong, Charlie Brown . . . "

Fun Quotes For A Cold Day

"The wind was blowing, but not too hard,
and everyone was so happy and gay
for it was only twenty degrees below zero
and the sun shone."

~ Laura Ingalls Wilder ~
American author, 1967 - 1957
from These Happy Golden Years,
# 8 in the Little House series, p 25

One morning we ran into a neighbor at the store
and she asked brightly:
"What was it at your house?"
"Fourteen below," we replied.
Her face fell. "We had minus twelve," she said,
and you could see that her day was ruined.

~ Richard Ketchum ~
[Lacking bio info on this author; if anyone has, please supply. Thanks!]
Photographs
Above: Backyard ~ January Sunrise, 2005
Top: Front Yard ~ The Big Snow, February 2007

P.S. Why is backyard one word and front yard two words?

P.P.S. Another mighty chillyLittle House winter episode!

Janus, Orpheus, Obsolescing

Republican Janus Coin, c. 225 - 212 BCE
I'd like to take a moment here on my daily blog to recommend a couple of things:

1. my most recent Fortnightly Blog:
January: Forward Vision, Backward Glance
[excerpt below]

and

2. a timely, stylish, and informative blog out of Philadelphia: Obsolescing: watching technologies as they wane. It is a nostalgic blog, but also forward thinking -- like Janus!

One of my favorite recent posts on Obsolescing is the autumnal "Ode for the Season" October 6, 2010 with it's allusion to the bereft Orpheus and Gerard Manley Hopkins' mournful little Margaret: "I think that the emotions that autumn elicits, the melancholy my own primitive soul starts feeling as the days shorten, are akin to the distress and sorrow we feel as the objects of our life, the utilitarian technologies that once surrounded and defined us, fade into memory. News of a past technology’s demise makes us suddenly, desperately long to hold, to touch, to smell, to hear the things of our past. Like Orpheus leading his beloved from the Underworld, we look back to reassure ourselves that the everyday things we have known and loved and remember still exist in their full corporeal presence (That’s why we revel in the sensory details — the typewriter’s clacking keys, the mimeograph ink’s distinctive scent.) Instead, we turn back to watch, in sadness and horror, as the objects of our lives, the tangible evidence of our own existence, slip from our outstretched arms" (~ Ann de Forest).

detail from
"Orpheus Leading Eurydice from the Underworld," 1861
by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796 - 1875)
French Landscape Painter
So as January comes to a close, should you crave a late night reminiscence of the old year or desire some early morning reading in contemplation of the new months ahead, turn on your astonishingly capable laptop computer and take a further look at Obsolescing: watching technologies as they wane. Enjoy the nostalgic, visionary musings of Ann de Forest and David Comberg.

Keep Christmas Cards With You

"Snow Cat" Christmas Card by Robert Guy
Another Snow Cat

"I hate these days immediately following the holidays. Emptying the house of Christmas trees, decorations and children is like emptying a home of warmth. But at least there’s the pile of Christmas cards to be looked through again before you do whatever you do when done with them. They serve as a cheerful handshake during the uncheerful letdown after Christmas. Don't stop sending them. Christmas cards are worth all the bother. In fact, the bother’s a good part of the pleasure." ~ Malcolm S. Forbes (1919 - 1990)

*******************************

"Urban Garden" Christmas Card
by Douglas Percy Bliss

FIRST FORTNIGHTLY POST OF THE NEW YEAR!

ON THE FORTNIGHTLY KITTI CARRIKER:
LITERARY BLOG OF CONNECTION & COINCIDENCE

"KEEP CHRISTMAS WITH YOU"

FEATURING FAVORITE SONG FROM SESAME STREET
"Keep Christmas With You All Through the Year"

AND

POST - CHRISTMAS POETRY
"For the Time Being" by W. H. Auden
"Christmas is Really for the Children" by Steve Turner

You can also keep Christmas Cards with you all through the year.

I just ordered these designs
from the post - holiday sale at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art:

"Red Row House" by Eyvind Earle &
"The Tame Deer" by Andre-Edouard Marty.

I can save them for next year, or
-- since they're blank inside
and because they feature a lot of pink and red --
start using them right away as Valentines!


NEW FORTNIGHTLY POST TOMORROW!
"January: Forward Vision, Backward Glance"

Peter May I Call You Pete

10 Classics in 10 Minutes
Here's a funny little coincidence. Yesterday, I was reminiscing with a friend about what a kick we used to get out of 10 Classics in 10 Minutes, read at lightening speed by John Moschitta. For years I kept an old copy in the car, perfect for entertaining the kids, who learned all the jokes and nonsense as toddlers, long before they had ever read or seen any of the original works.

Having recently upgraded from well - worn cassette tape (made in college) to new CD / book set (as seen above), I mentioned how lucky we were, in these days of technologial advancement, to also be able to watch Moschitta's old Fed Ex commercials on youtube, anytime we want. My favorite line: "Peter, may I call you Pete!"

A few seconds later, I flipped over from email to facebook and -- surprise! -- a couple of my cousins had just posted the Moschitta Fed Ex commercial, "Fast Paced World." Now how did they know that, simultaneous to their post, I been writing to another friend about this very advertisement?

Do you happen to remember this ad (1981) that the 40th-anniversary issue of New York Magazine (2008) called "The Most Memorable Advertisement Ever"? If not, brace yourself for a few seconds of extremely fast - paced fun. If so, well, take a look just for old time's sake -- always good for a smirk:

FedEx Commercial
with the World's Fastest Talker,
John Moschitta, Jr. (b 1954)

"Can you wait fifteen seconds? I can wait fifteen seconds."

You might also like:
10-Minute University
P.S. My favorite line in 10 Classics comes up in the one - minute Odyssey when Odysseus and his crew visit the "Edge of the World...reminisce about old dead friends, drink a little blood." My family and I like to fit this line in whenever we're making a to - do list or recounting the events of the day:

Q: What did you do this afternoon?
A: I practiced the piano, went to the grocery store, stopped by the post office, drank a little blood.

Q: What should we do over Spring Break?
A: Maybe go skiing. Maybe the art museum. Visit the cousins. Reminisce about old dead friends. Drink a little blood.

A Little More Hospitable

Sunset On Boxing Day 2010*

“We were made to enjoy music, to enjoy beautiful sunsets,
to enjoy looking at the billows of the sea
and to be thrilled with a rose that is bedecked with dew . . .
Human beings are actually created for the transcendent,
for the sublime, for the beautiful, for the truthful . . .
and all of us are given the task of trying to make this world
a little more hospitable to these beautiful things.”

Desmond Tutu, b. 1931
South African Activist
Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town

* The day after Christmas, while talking to Mom on the phone, I stepped out on the deck and took this picture of our backyard, though I must admit that multi - tasking -- camera & phone simultaneously! -- is not usually my strong suit! Then, for the above result, I started experimenting with "Fun Features" on Kodak EasyShare. Fun! Easy!

The Moggy

Gerry and the Moggy
Outside St. Mary's Church, Little Crosby (nr Liverpool)
In British English, Moggy is a nickname for two things: a domesticated kitty - cat and the cute little car pictured above: The Morris Minor. Gerry and I had a lot of fun driving his dad's Moggy Minor around England, back in December 1992 when we were lucky enough to have a month - long Christmas vacation (the last time that ever happened!).

We still like to tell the story about the discovery we made when driving into town one cold night. As the car's interior got colder by the mile, and the windshield slowly but surely frosted over, we searched the tiny dashboard in vain for any kind of switch that might provide a little heat, turn on a fan, or activate the defroster.

As a last resort (it was ever thus), we checked the manual which -- amazingly, for a twenty - something - year - old car with multiple owners -- was still in the glove box. As we thumbed through the pages, the fruitlessness of our search for heat was soon revealed. A helpful motoring tip informed us that "Some deluxe models come with a heater." Ah ha! That explained it! Our model, while delightful, was not deluxe! Oh well, that's why we loved it.

To this day, whenever we find ourselves let down by some unanticipated mechanical limitation, we just shake our heads in better - luck - next - time resignation and say, "Some deluxe models come with a heater . . . "

Click here to learn more about The Morris Minor: A British miracle.

Full Wolf Moon

The New Basic Readers by Scott, Forseman and Company
Are you familiar with this reading series from grade school? I well remember Vistas in 5th grade and Cavalcades in 6th. I would occupy myself for long stretches of time by thumbing through the pages and copying out by hand all the poems that I liked best. I painstakingly entered into my scrapbook favorites by Elizabeth Coatsworth, Eleanor Farjeon, and Walt Whitman.

One of my top choices in Cavalcades was "Lone Dog," by Irene Rutherford McLeod:
Lone Dog
I'm a lean dog, a keen dog, a wild dog, and lone;
I'm a rough dog, a tough dog, hunting on my own;
I'm a bad dog, a mad dog, teasing silly sheep;
I love to sit and bay the moon, to keep fat souls from sleep.

I'll never be a lap dog, licking dirty feet,
A sleek dog, a meek dog, cringing for my meat,
Not for me the fireside, the well-filled plate,
But shut door, and sharp stone, and cuff and kick, and hate.

Not for me the other dogs, running by my side,
Some have run a short while, but none of them would bide.
O mine is still the lone trail, the hard trail, the best,
Wide wind, and wild stars, and hunger of the quest!

by Australian (?) poet, Irene Rutherford McLeod, 1891 - 1968
from her collection, Songs to Save a Soul, 1915


*************************************
Tonight, before you go to bed, be sure to take a look out the window at the snowy, icy Full Wolf Moon, the First Moon After Yule. Listen for a moment until you hear the ghostly howl of the lone dog and the long gone wolf packs for whom the January moon is named: "Amid the cold and deep snows of midwinter, the wolf packs howled hungrily outside Indian villages."

Similarly, the month we call January was known to the the ancient Angles and Saxons as Wolf - Month: Wulfmonath, since it was the time of year when the wolves were unable to find food, and their hunger made them bold enough to come into the villages.

A couple of nights ago, I managed to capture this rather unique perspective of the Full Wolf Moon of January:

This photo was taken, at Gerry's suggestion, from inside the house, where we have two of these hexagonal windows -- perfect for looking out at the moon. Photographing from the inside looking out appears to have been successful, judging by all the fun comments I received on facebook:

1. Mia: I saw the moon tonight at 8pm -- huge above the horizon! I guess that awestruck feeling it gave me must have been an urge to howl!

2. Eileen: What is it about moons? SO compelling/ hinting of worlds beyond...

3. Paula: Eeeeeerie...It always is, to me!

4. Karen: That is beautiful! Add noticed it on his way out the door this morning. Even after the sun came up, it was HUGE in the west.

5. Cheryl: I woke up about 4 this morning and the full moon was shining across the new snowfall. It was breathtaking, but I couldn't get my camera to capture it very well.

[I was just like Cheryl, outside first thing in the morning trying to get more pictures; probably the same view Karen had]

Light, Love, and Community on MLK Day

Whenever I'm running an errand out at Food Finders,* I always like to stop by the office of my friend Katy Bunder and read the poster that she has hanging on her wall. If you haven't decided on your New Year's Resolutions yet, you'll find some good ones here:

The Building Community Poster reads:

Turn Off Your TV
Leave Your House
Know Your Neighbors * Greet People
Look Up When You Are Walking
Sit On Your Stoop * Plant Flowers
Use Your Library * Play Together
Buy From Local Merchants
Share What You Have * Help A Lost Dog
Take Children To The Park * Honor Elders
Support Neighborhood Schools
Fix It Even If You Didn't Break It
Have Pot Lucks * Garden Together
Pick Up Litter * Read Stories Aloud
Dance In The Street
Talk To The Mail Carrier
Listen To The Birds * Put Up A Swing
Help Carry Something Heavy
Barter For Your Goods
Start A Tradition * Ask A Question
Hire Young People for Odd Jobs
Organize A Block Party
Bake Extra And Share
Ask For Help When You Need It
Open Your Shades * Sing Together
Share Your Skills
Take Back the Night
Turn Up The Music * Turn Down The Music
Listen Before You React To Anger
Mediate A Conflict * Seek To Understand
Learn From New & Uncomfortable Angles
Know That No One is Silent --
Though Many Are Not Heard
Work To Change This

by The Syracuse Cultural Workers P.S.
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful,
committed citizens can change the world.
Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
~Margaret Mead (1901 - 1978)
American cultural anthropologist

P.P.S.
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness;
only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate;
only love can do that. . . .

Let no one pull you low enough to hate. . . . ."

~Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968)
American Civil Rights Leader
Winner of Nobel Peace Prize, 1964

*****************************
*Click on this Food Finders link, and you will see a picture of my son Sam, walking in the local Hunger Hike, Fall 2008.

The Time Being

~~ Reminds Gerry of his grandfather's "Old House" in England ~~
Urban Garden Under Snow
by Douglas Percy Bliss (Scottish Painter, 1900 - 84)
*******************************************

"But while we often like to comfort
or flatter ourselves with the thought that the future is now,
the brute truth is, the future is not now. The present is now.
The future is later -- in some cases much later."

quotation from the humorous little book,
Santa Lives! Five Conclusive Arguments
for the Existence of Santa Claus
by wry humorist Elllis Weiner (b 1950)
Coauthor of Yiddish with Dick and Jane and The Joy of Worry
*******************************************
Similarly the poet W. H. Auden writes:

"But, for the time being, here we all are . . .

The Time Being is, in a sense, the most trying time of all . . .

In the meantime
There are bills to be paid, machines to keep in repair,
Irregular verbs to learn, the Time Being to redeem
From insignificance."

lines from
For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio
by W. H. Auden (1907 - 73)
Anglo-American poet
Born in England, later an American citizen
******************************************

The theme of Auden's poem is just right for "The Quotidian Kit." The Time Being is just so daily, so commonly thought small. William F. French explains it very well in his analysis of the poem, concluding that we

" . . . are so accustomed to thinking of the moral life in the flash-and-bang terms of dramatic decisions and heroic choices that our daily routines and quiet virtues are regarded as morally insignificant.

"But Auden is no fool. His humor is designed to remind us that our attitude to our own limitations may govern how we respond to the harsh times of tragic choices. Auden’s comic voice reminds us that patience may well be a quiet form of courage, and self-awareness and humility contain a silent power all their own. In redeeming the everyday, he reminds us that moral heroism need not always be dramatically displayed."

concluding paragraph from
"Auden’s Moral Comedy: A Late-Winter Reading"
by ethics professor William F. French (click to read)
******************************************
CLICK TO READ ADDITIONAL
POST - CHRISTMAS POETRY
BY W. H. AUDEN & STEVE TURNER
DAVID AXELROD & SAM POTTLE

ON THE FORTNIGHTLY KITTI CARRIKER:
LITERARY BLOG OF CONNECTION & COINCIDENCE

Keep Christmas With You

Presents From A Friend!
FIRST FORTNIGHTLY POST OF THE NEW YEAR!
NOW AVAILABLE ON
THE FORTNIGHTLY KITTI CARRIKER:
LITERARY BLOG OF CONNECTION & COINCIDENCE
"KEEP CHRISTMAS WITH YOU"
Feeling blue? A few unexpected presents might cheer you up, along with some excellent post-seasonal advice from Sesame Street. If you're not familiar with this song already, perhaps from watching Christmas Eve on Sesame Street a couple hundred times with your kids, then you are in for a treat. Click on the title to view the children's surprising and touchingly rendered sign language presentation:

Keep Christmas With You All Through the Year
When Christmas time is over
and presents put away,
don't be sad
There'll be so much to treasure
about this Christmas day
and the fun we've had
So may happy feelings to celebrate with you
And, oh, the good time hurry by so fast,
But even when it's over
there's something you can do to make
Christmas last:

Keep Christmas with you
All through the year,
When Christmas is over,
You can keep it near.
Think of this Christmas day
When Christmas is far away.

Keep Christmas with you
All through the year,
When Christmas is over,
Save some Christmas cheer.
These precious moments,
Hold them very dear
And keep Christmas with you
All through the year.

Christmas means the spirit of giving,
Peace and joy to you,
The goodness of loving,
The gladness of living;
These are Christmas too.

So, keep Christmas with you
All through the year,
When Christmas is over,
Save some Christmas cheer.
These precious moments,
Hold them very dear
And keep Christmas with you
All through the year.

lyrics by David Axelrod (b. 1936)
American lyricist,composer, and producer

music by Sam Pottle (1934 - 78)
American composer, conductor, musical director

from Christmas Eve on Sesame Street

Which one should I open next?
CLICK TO READ ADDITIONAL
POST - CHRISTMAS POETRY
BY W. H. AUDEN & STEVE TURNER

Winter Dreams

"Winter Dreams"
China Pattern by Waechtersbach*
I hope you've had a moment to glance at my recent Fortnightly blog post: "Another Faraway Auld Lang Syne" (December 28, 2010). And I hope you were touched as I and my family have been by William Saroyan's short short story "The Faraway Night." (My talented son Ben actually memorized this entire piece and recited it at a school Declamation program when he was in junior high!)

If you enjoyed Saroyan's reverie, you might also like to take a look at F. Scott Fitzgerald's story of youthful infatuation and gradual disillusion -- "Winter Dreams" (click for text).

The opening and closing lines caught my imagination long ago and have remained as one of my own winter dreams:

"In the fall when the days became crisp and gray, and the long Minnesota winter shut down like the white lid of a box, Dexter's skis moved over the snow that hid the fairways of the golf course. At these times the country gave him a feeling of profound melancholy--it offended him that the links should lie in enforced fallowness, haunted by ragged sparrows for the long season. It was dreary, too, that on the tees where the gay colors fluttered in summer there were now only the desolate sand-boxes knee-deep in crusted ice. When he crossed the hills the wind blew cold as misery, and if the sun was out he tramped with his eyes squinted up against the hard dimensionless glare.

"In April the winter ceased abruptly. The snow ran down into Black Bear Lake scarcely tarrying for the early golfers to brave the season with red and black balls. Without elation, without an interval of moist glory, the cold was gone. . . .

"As so frequently would be the case in the future, Dexter was unconsciously dictated to by his winter dreams.
*******"For he had gone away and he could never go back any more. The gates were closed, the sun was gone down, and there was no beauty but the gray beauty of steel that withstands all time. Even the grief he could have borne was left behind in the country of illusion, of youth, of the richness of life, where his winter dreams had flourished."



*More Winter Dreams: Years ago, when my sister Peg was living in Germany, she sent me a gorgeous teapot, cups and saucers in the above pattern. I've since acquired a few coffee mugs and dessert plates, perfect for serving a late afternoon pick-me-up by the fire on a cold January day.


Winter Mantel Display

Words: Audible, Edible

Let It Snow! & Alphabet Soup
by Susan Branch

"Antiphanes said merrily,
that in a certain city the cold was so intense
that words were congealed as soon as spoken,
but that after some time
they thawed and became audible;
so that the words spoken in winter
were articulated next summer."

Plutarch, (46 - 120)
1st Century Biographer
born Greek but later became a Roman citizen
Waiting for the Thaw