Thursday, April 27, 2017

A Minute Meditation

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Some ride in palanquins Some bear palanquins: Some weave sandals For palanquin bearers                    -- Anon -- from Japanese Pr...
5 comments:
Sunday, April 23, 2017

N. Scott Momaday: on stories

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Another quotation from N. Scott Momaday on storytellers and storytelling.  I think there are some ideas expressed in them that wouldn't ...
7 comments:
Thursday, April 20, 2017

Han Shan: solitude

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One reason why I admire Han Shan (Cold Mountain) is his humanity.  He comes across as very human, and this is one that reveals him as being...
9 comments:
Monday, April 17, 2017

Lawrence Durrell: Justine, Pt. 3

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Lawrence Durrell Justine As many have said before and many will repeat in the future, one of the joys and benefits of rereading some wor...
16 comments:
Thursday, April 13, 2017

A Minute Meditation

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The storyteller is the one who tells the story.  To say this is to say that the storyteller is preeminently entitled to tell the story.  He...
8 comments:
Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Nikos Kazantzakis: Toda Raba

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Nikos Kazantzakis Toda Raba Published 1931 English Translation, 1964 Amy Mims,  trans.   The focal point of this tale is the Sovie...
4 comments:
Saturday, April 8, 2017

The Rubaiyat: Second Edition, Quatrain XC

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This quatrain is linked to the previous quatrain  in which the narrator eavesdrops on the Potter's creations as they comment in the Pott...
9 comments:
Wednesday, April 5, 2017

John Muir: Destruction or Creation?

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No. 66 How lavish is Nature, building, pulling down, creating, destroying, chasing every material particle from form to form, ever chang...
14 comments:
Sunday, April 2, 2017

Lawrence Durrell: Justine, Pt. 2

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For some reason, the narrator neglected to introduce us to Balthazar, who will be a very important character, as suggested by his name given...
13 comments:
Thursday, March 30, 2017

The Eagle

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     Hokusai:  Eagle in Flight The Eagle He clasps the crag with crooked hands; C lose to the sun in lonely lands, Ring'd ...
11 comments:
Sunday, March 26, 2017

Favorite SF novels or short works--2016

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These are those SF/F works that I read and enjoyed during 2016, and many of which I might read again, sometime down the road. NOVELS ...
14 comments:
Friday, March 24, 2017

Li Po: "Drinking Alone in Moonlight"

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I have already posted this poem, but it was a different translation.  I have heard the saying, "In vino veritas,"when means, I gue...
7 comments:
Monday, March 20, 2017

Robert Frost: Spring Pools

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Spring Pools These pools that, though in forests, still reflect The total sky almost without defect, And like the flowers beside them, c...
10 comments:
Friday, March 17, 2017

Basho's frog

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This is probably one of Basho's most famous haiku.   I have a book titled Basho's One Hundred Frogs,  a collection of 100 differen...
7 comments:
Tuesday, March 14, 2017

A Minute Observation

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Nothing very profound here--just an observation by Joseph Wood Krutch on the long northern winters and various ways that some animals have f...
8 comments:
Saturday, March 11, 2017

Eric Hoffer: totalitarianism in free societies

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No. 28 There is a large measure of totalitarianism even in the freest of free societies.  But in a free society totalitarianism is not im...
22 comments:
Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Favorite Fiction--2016

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Some favorite works of fiction I read during 2016, FIRST READS Sarah Orne Jewett:                   The Country of Pointed Firs ...
14 comments:
Sunday, March 5, 2017

The Rubaiyat: Second Edition, Quatrain LXXXVI

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A confusing quatrain:  the syntax is not clear to me. SECOND EDITION:  QUATRAIN LXXXVI Nay, but for the terror of his wrathful Face, I...
7 comments:
Thursday, March 2, 2017

A Minute Meditation

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I realized then the truth about all love:  that it is an absolute which takes all or forfeits all.  The other feelings, compassion, tenderne...
3 comments:
Sunday, February 26, 2017

Robert Hayden: Those Winter Sundays

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Sometimes while reading a poem, a stanza or even a line may resurrect memories long forgotten or at least not recalled in many years.  This ...
12 comments: