Or as Louis L’Amour said,
“The trail is the thing, not the end of the trail. Travel too fast,
and you miss all you are traveling for.”
Enjoy the little things…
And remember…
You are not too old
and it is not too late
to dive into your increasing depths
where life calmly gives out
it’s own secret
–Rainer Maria Rilke
Have a nice Wednesday and repeat to yourself: “Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.” (Emerson, of course)
“Flowers have an expression of countenance as much as men and animals. Some seem to smile; some have a sad expression; some are pensive and diffident; others again are plain, honest and upright, like the broad-faced sunflower and the hollyhock.”
–Henry Ward Beecher
Here is a picture of our grandmother Mira Sargent about a hundred years ago in her father’s yard in Worcester, MA. How about those hollyhocks?! As my children know, I have always wanted to grow hollyhocks in my own yard, but have never been able to do so. What was the Sargent’s secret?!
A new month, a new calendar page and the end of summer in sight. For those of us in this flyover state it has not been a bad summer weather-wise. Indeed, we have had lovely long stretches of Michigan-esque weather. By this time, usually, we are counting the days ’til fall, but not this year. I am in no hurry for school to be back in session full throttle. I plan to enjoy the dog days that are left of summer 2013.
The August TCM star of the month is old Humphrey Bogart, film idol and Episcopalian.
As I’ve mentioned before, my mother had a preference for Warner Brothers stars, such as Bogart and Errol Flynn, because she went to see all those movies at the Lewis J. Warner ’28 Memorial Theater at Worcester Academy (which I blogged about here). Like my mother, I feel that same thrill when the Warner Brothers logo appears and their rousing theme is played at the beginning of all their movies. TCM is not showing anything that I haven’t seen a million times and my favorite Bogart film, The Petrified Forest, is not on the line-up, but oh well. They are all still better than anything you’ll see on network television–reruns and commercials!
Tonight, however, they are showing my second-favorite Bogart film Key Largo, which is also one of my all-time favorite movies. I just saw it again recently and it really is fabulous. John Huston and Bogart were a good team and the star is at his best, ably supported by Edward G. Robinson, Claire Trevor and Lauren Bacall. So be sure to tune in or (at the very least) set your DVR.
August 1 is also the birthday of Herman Melville (August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891), American writer and author, of course, of Moby-Dick.
This would be a great month to read the great book! You know you’ve been meaning to. Here’s a little something to get you in the mood.
“There is no steady unretracing progress in this life; we do not advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one pause:– through infancy’s unconscious spell, boyhood’s thoughtless faith, adolescence’s doubt (the common doom), then scepticism, then disbelief, resting at last in manhood’s pondering repose of If. But once gone through, we trace the round again; and are infants, boys, and men, and Ifs eternally. Where lies the final harbor, whence we unmoor no more? In what rapt ether sails the world, of which the weariest will never weary? Where is the foundling’s father hidden? Our souls are like those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it.”
August 1 is the birthday as well of Jerome Moross (August 1, 1913 – July 25, 1983) who composed works for symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, soloists, musical theatre, and movies. He also orchestrated motion picture scores for other composers. His best known film score is that for the 1958 movie The Big Country, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Original Music Score.
The winner that year in that category was The Old Man and the Sea, scored by Dimitri Tiomkin. Hold the phone! Are you kidding me? Jerome Moross was robbed! But why am I never surprised? Anyway, you might want to watch that movie–it’s a good one. It misses being a great western because of the annoying plot and the super annoying character played by Carol Baker. Nevertheless, it has some great people in it: Gregory Peck, Charlton Heston, Jean Simmons, and Burl Ives (who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor). And the score is probably the best ever.
So here’s to a good August filled with great movies and great books! Let’s all have a good one.
This is how I felt yesterday trying to think of something to blog about.
Thomas Eakins’ “The Artist’s Wife and His Setter”
I tried to get excited about Thomas Eakins, the artist who painted this picture,
but I couldn’t.
Even the babies in his paintings were thoughtful and looked depressed.
So I will just offer you this thought for the day from Anne Lamott:
“You will go through your life thinking there was a day in second grade that you must have missed, when the grown-ups came in and explained everything important to other kids. They said, ‘Look, you’re human, you’re going to feel isolated and afraid a lot of the time, and have bad self-esteem, and feel uniquely ruined, but here is the magic phrase that will take this feeling away. It will be like a feather that will lift you out of that fear and self-consciousness every single time, all through your life.’ And then they told the children who were there that day the magic phrase that everyone else in the world knows about and uses when feeling blue, which only you don’t know, because you were home sick the day the grown-ups told the children the way the whole world works.
But there was not such a day in school. No one got the instructions. That is the secret of life. Everyone is flailing around, winging it most of the time, trying to find the way out, or through, or up, without a map. This lack of instruction manual is how most people develop compassion, and how they figure out to show up, care, help and serve, as the only way of filling up and being free. Otherwise you grow up to be someone who needs to dominate and shame others so no one will know that you weren’t there the day the instructions were passed out.”
Reblogged from Bless This Mess who reblogged it from somewhere else.
Who knew July was such a month for wedding anniversaries? My dual personality’s. The boy’s. And our brother celebrated one back in June.
Well, it’s okay to be proud of some things. I ran across this picture on a blog and I thought it was worth sharing with our readers. Something to aspire to, as it were–the long marriage, that is, not the shirts!
I know a couple who has been married for 70 years–they’re in their nineties! This is mind-boggling to say the least. And awesome.
Likewise awesome is this poem by Anne Bradstreet (the 17th-century Puritan who was the first poet and first female writer in the British North American colonies to be published.*)–To My Dear and Loving Husband
If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee.
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay;
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let’s so persevere,
That when we live no more, we may live ever.
I better end this post before I get started on Puritans. Most the people who read this popular poem at their own weddings nowadays probably don’t even know who Anne Bradstreet was and that she was a Puritan! Zut alors!
*According to Wikipedia.
Some time back I wrote a post about those historical figures with whom it would be awesome to share a meal. You may recall that daughter #2 brought up fictional characters and I said that that was a whole ‘nother post.
Well, it being mid-summer and Friday, I thought I’d get the ball rolling on that post. Here is a list of fictional (literary) characters I would invite to dinner. (Note: this list does not include any film or television characters and definitely no phonies.)
1. Holden Caulfield, The Catcher In the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
Any members of the Glass family would be welcome to stand in for Holden if he was AWOL and couldn’t make it.
2. Philip Marlowe, numerous books and stories by Raymond Chandler
He really is my perfect man and no one, even Bogart, has done him justice on film.
3. Mr. Knightley, Emma (Jane Austen)
Sigh. Understanding, sensitive, handsome, humble, and rich.
4. James Burke, Lord Jim (Joseph Conrad)
In addition to Jim, I would invite his friends Stein and Marlow. One of the quotes on my senior page was from this book.
5. Shane, Shane (Jack Schaefer)
The archetype.
6 and 7. Captain Call and Augustus McCrae, Lonesome Dove (Larry McMurtry)
Some people might only invite Gus, but I love Captain Call just as much.
8. Starbuck, Moby-Dick (Herman Melville)
Ahab’s Quaker first mate, who, alone among the crew, has his doubts about the captain’s motives. He just wants to make it home.
9. The Fool, King Lear (W. Shakespeare)
The great secret of the successful fool – that he is no fool at all.
10. Judah Ben Hur, Ben Hur (Lew Wallace)
He was devoted to his mother and his sister–in addition to being awesome.
11. Francis Crawford of Lymond,The Game of Kings et al (Dorothy Dunnett)
Living by his wits and his sword-arm in 16th-century Scotland…
12. Dick Summers, The Big Sky (A.B. Guthrie)
Mountain man and gentleman. Such a great character–the author had to bring him back in The Way West.
13. Father Tim, At Home in Mitford et al (Jan Karon)
I’ll admit he’s a bit of a goodie-goodie and it’s true that he and his wife can be a bit much, but I do love this series of books and what would they be without Father Tim Kavanaugh at the center of them? Also he would probably agree to bring the main dish to the dinner and would offer the blessing.
14. Owen Meany, A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
A REALLY GREAT GUY!
If we wanted to spice things up a bit, maybe I would invite Raskolnikov, the young, stressed-out ex-student of law in Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, but I’m not sure if that would be a good idea.
I did not intend for this list to be all male, but that’s the way it ended up. In order to give equal time (not quite) to the ladies, I’ll add:
13 and 14. Lady Dona St. Columb (Frenchman’s Creek)
and Mary Yellan (Jamaica Inn) by Daphne DuMaurier
15. Jane Eyre, Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
16. Precious Ramotswe, The #1 Ladies’ Detective Agency (Alexander McCall Smith)
and from the animal kingdom: Miss Bianca, The Rescuers (Margery Sharp)
and Charlotte, Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
All these ladies are smart, resourceful, brave, and do the right thing. Charlotte was also “a true friend and a good writer.”
As you can see, it is really easy to get carried away with an exercise such as this! I could go on and on. Who have I left out? Atticus Finch? TinTin? Richard Hannay? David Copperfield? Pippi Longstocking? Who would you invite?
“I want less love of money, less judging others, less tattling, less dependence upon external appearance. I want to see more fruit of the Spirit in all things, more devotion of heart, more spirit of prayer, more real cultivation of mind, more enlargement of heart towards all; more tenderness towards delinquents, and above all more of the rest, peace and liberty of the children of God.”
Elizabeth Fry (21 May 1780 – 12 October 1845) was an English prison reformer, social reformer and, and a prominent Quaker of her day. She had many admirers, among them Queen Victoria, who granted her an audience a few times and contributed money to her cause. Another admirer was Robert Peel who passed several acts to further her cause including the Gaols Act 1823.
Since 2001 Fry has been depicted on the reverse of £5 notes issued by the Bank of England. She is shown reading to prisoners at Newgate Prison. The design also incorporates a key, representing the key to the prison which was awarded to Fry in recognition of her work. However, as of 2016, Fry’s image on these notes will be replaced by that of Winston Churchill.
“[Adamsberg] had recently seen a photograph that had struck him as a clear illustration of his own idea of his brain. It showed the contents of a fishing net unloaded on the deck of a large vessel, a pile taller than the fishermen themselves, a heap of all kinds of things, defying identification, in which the silvery colours of the fish mingles with the dark brown of seaweed, the grey of the crustaceans…the blue of lobsters, the white of seashells, making it hard to distinguish the different elements. That was what he was always fighting, the confused, multiform and shifting mass, always ready to change or vanish, and float off again into the sea. The sailors were sorting out the pile, throwing back creatures that were too small, lumps of seaweed or detritus, and saving the familar useful species. Adamsberg, it seemed to him, did the opposite, throwing out all the sensible items and then looking at the irrelevant fragments of his personal collection.”
–Fred Vargas, The Ghost Riders of Ordebec
RIchard II, King of England
Richard II (6 January 1367 – ca. 14 February 1400) was King of England from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399. Richard, a son of Edward, the Black Prince, was born during the reign of his grandfather, Edward III. Richard was the younger brother of Edward of Angoulême; upon the death of this elder brother, Richard—at four years of age—became second in line to the throne after his father. Upon the death of Richard’s father prior to the death of Edward III, Richard, by agnatic succession, became the first in line for the throne. With Edward III’s death the following year, Richard succeeded to the throne at the age of ten. (Read more about him here.)
If you are wondering why you are reading about Richard II, it is because today is the anniversary of his coronation in 1377. Huzzah! The history major in me likes to remind you of these important facts which I fear you may have forgotten. (I had.) And I am always happy to dig out a good Shakespeare quote, especially this one, which conjures up images, not of Sir John Gielgud and Derek Jacobi, but of Leslie Howard as the Scarlet Pimpernel!
“This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle,
This earth of majesty,
this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,–
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.”
― William Shakespeare, Richard II, Act 2, Scene 1
You remember Leslie Howard at the end of the movie, reciting these lines to Raymond Massey, don’t you?
You felt that he meant every word and he did. No one loved England more than he. He proved it a few years later by dying for his country during WWII. (I blogged about that previously here.)
Well, this post is further proof that I can bring just about any reference around to a movie. Who, sir? Me, sir? Yes, sir. You, sir.
I was talking to daughter #1 yesterday–I was at work and she was walking down Columbus Avenue on her way to work in New York City. It started to rain and she had to run. There were no toadstools to wait under.
AP photo
It was rainy as well in my flyover town, and I was reminded of this poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882).
The Rainy Day
THE DAY is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
But you know, the sun always comes out again…and the tiger lilies are blooming!
Who can be sad for long when these wonderful flowers are blooming in our backyard and all along flyover byways?
dual personalities 