Monday, August 25, 2014

Eric Hoffer: on total commitment

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No. 54 Anyone aware of the imperfections inherent in human affairs is hardly capable of total commitment.  Part of him will inevitably rem...
4 comments:
Friday, August 22, 2014

Eric Hoffer: some thoughts on freedom

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Some random quotations from Eric Hoffer on the nature of freedom: No. 55 We take for granted the need to escape the self.  Yet the self...
8 comments:
Monday, August 18, 2014

Han shan or Cold Mountain: a poem

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Han shan was a hermit poet who probably lived sometime during the ninth and tenth centuries.  "Han shan" means cold mountain in Ch...
5 comments:
Friday, August 15, 2014

Baltasar Gracian: the necessity for the coverup

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No. 126 "He is not a fool who commits foolishness, but he who having done so does not know how to conceal it.  If your merits should ...
4 comments:
Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Henry Beard: the anonymous old English epic--Beocat

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Following is a poem that dates back to the heroic years, a thousand years ago, an Old English Epic written by an Unknown Author's Cat.  ...
2 comments:
Sunday, August 10, 2014

Robert Grudin: the loss of the past

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III.2 "One of the most mysterious operations of time is the way in which things silently divorce themselves from us and slip into th...
5 comments:
Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Otomo no Tabito: a suggestion for the wise

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44. Instead of  fretting    over things that can't be changed, how much better    to swallow down a full cup        of cloudy sak...
Saturday, August 2, 2014

Colin Wilson: THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE, an SF novel

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Colin Wilson The Philosopher's Stone                                              PART ONE                                 The Q...
Friday, August 1, 2014

Eric Hoffer: quiet confidence and noisy insecurity

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No. 11 "The passionate state of mind is often indicative of a lack of skill, talent or power.  Moreover, passionate intensity can ser...
2 comments:
Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Robert Louis Stevenson and Langston Hughes: Two points of view

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Requiem Under the wide and starry sky, Dig the grave and let me lie. Glad did I live and gladly die,    And I laid me down with a wil...
2 comments:
Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Joseph Conrad: A SET OF SIX

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short stories "Gaspar Ruiz" This story takes place in South America during the period when the colonies were struggling with Sp...
6 comments:
Monday, July 21, 2014

David Brin: EXISTENCE, an SF novel of the near future

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David Brin Existence This is, as far as I can tell, Brin's latest novel, and it's a hefty one at some five hundred and fifty+ pa...
2 comments:

Lawrence Durrell: "Mneiae

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I think I had mentioned before that Lawrence Durrell is one of my favorite novelists. His "Alexandria Quartet" and "The Avign...
Thursday, July 17, 2014

Kenko: longing for the past

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29 "When I sit down in quiet meditation, the one emotion hardest to fight against is a longing in all things for the past.  After th...
2 comments:
Saturday, July 12, 2014

Emily Dickinson, a poem

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# 9 Through lane it lay -- through bramble -- Through clearing and through wood -- Banditti often passed us Upon the lonely road. The...
6 comments:
Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Loren Eiseley: Meaningless Voices

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Loren Eiseley (1907-1977), as you may have noticed, is one of my favorite essayists and prose writers, possibly my favorite, if I ever took ...
6 comments:
Friday, June 27, 2014

Thomas Hardy: "I Have LIved With Shades"

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Could this perhaps reflect Hardy's own doubts about his place in history? "I Have Lived With Shades"                      ...
4 comments:
Friday, June 20, 2014

The Village: an SF film

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The Village an SF film Here's another one of those quiet SF films that I never heard of until I ran across it by accident.  It app...
25 comments:
Saturday, June 14, 2014

Robert Grudin: what we best understand

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II.24     If the words "to have" and "to know" are taken in their deepest sense, then there is nothing in the world tha...
8 comments:
Monday, June 9, 2014

David Brin: EXISTENCE, an excerpt

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David Brin Existence SF novel, 553 pages I'm in the midst of reading a remarkable SF novel by David Brin.  I've always enjoyed ...
13 comments: