Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Walt Whitman: May 31, 1819 to March 26, 1892

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From Song of Myself , Stanza 50 There is that in me--I do not know what it is--but I know it is in me. Wrench'd and sweaty--calm and...
Monday, May 30, 2011

Hermann Hesse: Steppenwolf

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Warning: I will discuss significant plot elements and the endings of various works. It’s been several decades since I last read Hesse’s S...
4 comments:
Friday, May 27, 2011

Simon J. Ortiz: May 27, 1941--

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Both poems come from Simon Ortiz: Woven Stone The University of Arizona Press, Tucson and London The Dedication from the book: For ...
Thursday, May 26, 2011

Hitomaro: a poem

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I first read this several days ago, and now, every morning, I can't help but think of this poem. When, Halting in front of it, I look A...
Sunday, May 22, 2011

In Memoriam: Langston Hughes Feb. 1, 1902--May 22, 1967

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Afro-American Fragment So long, So far away Is Africa. Not even memories alive Save those that history books create, Save those that songs B...
8 comments:
Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Something to think about

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It always surprises me, I don't know why, when I find that some current attitudes have been around for hundreds, if not thousands, of ye...
Monday, May 16, 2011

Franz Kafka: "A Country Doctor"

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Franz Kafka, "A Country Doctor," a short story. It begins relatively sanely: "I was in great perplexity; I had to start on a...
4 comments:
Saturday, May 14, 2011

Emily Dickinson: Dec 10, 1830--May 15, 1886, In Memoriam

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Emily Dickinson lived only fifty-six years, and much of that time as a recluse. However, the almost 1800 poems that she wrote will keep her...
4 comments:
Friday, May 13, 2011

Michel de Montaigne on prognostication

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The following quotations are from Montaigne's Essays , specifically Chapter 11, "Of Prognostications." And although there stil...
Thursday, May 12, 2011

Something to think about

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No. 3 The source of man's creativeness is in his deficiencies; he compensates himself for what he lacks. He became Homo faber--a maker...
Monday, May 9, 2011

The Rubaiyat: Quatrain XL

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This is the second quatrain in a set of six that refer in some way to either the grape or the vine. The other quatrains are XXIX, XLI, XLII...
Friday, April 29, 2011

Carpe Diem--Seize the Day

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Carpe Diem or "seize the day!" or perhaps the more popular version: "Eat. drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die....
2 comments:
Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Combination Plate 18

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Warning: I will discuss significant plot elements and endings. Mike Ashley, ed. The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes and Impossible Mysterie...
2 comments:
Sunday, April 24, 2011

Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 3 versions

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Spoiler Warning: I will discuss significant plot elements and the endings. Close Encounters of the Third Kind , three versions Director: St...
Friday, April 22, 2011

Earth Day

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Sailing Homeward Cliffs that rise a thousand feet Without a break, Lake that stretches a hundred miles Without a wave, Sands that are white ...
Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Three Poems

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99 New feet within my garden go -- New fingers stir the sod -- A Troubadour upon the Elm Betrays the solitude New children play upon the gre...
Saturday, April 16, 2011

The Rubaiyat: Quatrain XXXIX

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A familiar theme in this quatrain: First Edition: Quatrain XXXIX How long, how long in infinite Pursuit Of This and That endeavour and dispu...
Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Shakespeare: In memoriam, 1564--April 13, 1616

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Sonnet LXXXI Or I shall live your epitaph to make, Or you survive when I in earth am rotten; From hence your memory death cannot take, ...

Something to think about

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No. 77 Know how to be all things to all men. A wise Proteus, he who is learned with the learned, and with the pious, pious: it is the great...
10 comments:
Saturday, April 9, 2011

Steven Spielberg--A. I.: Artificial Intelligence, a film

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Warning: I will discuss significant parts of the story and the ending. Steven Spielberg's A. I. : Artificial Intelligence . This is...
2 comments: