Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die.
G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism what will be grasped at once, and they require separate techniques. Winston Churchill have mastered language more than any other statesman. Even so, when he wanted to rally the British people during the Second World War, he didn’t speak like a scholar. He said—so basically that anyone could understand—“You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs—victory in spite of all terrors—victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival.”
On a micro level, The Tree of Life, set primarily in the 1950s in Waco, Texas (Malick’s hometown), tells the story of a boy, Jack (Hunter McCracken), the oldest of three sons, struggling against the rule of his authoritarian father (Brad Pitt); on a macro, the film takes on nothing less than the beginning of the universe. Meteors erupt, lava flows, dinosaurs roam the earth; the whispery voice-over of Jack’s beatific mother (Jessica Chastain) implores Help each other. Love everyone. Every leaf. Every ray of light. Forgive
Louder Than Words: Depraved, Baroque, and Mostly Offbeat The Tree of Life
IT’S A BIG TRAP to think that living in another time would be better. At its best, each generation collapses past, present, and future setences ... IT’S NOT THAT I DON’T LIKE WORDS, There’s sometimes no need for words ... The Mystery of Reading Backwards:
Don't nod
Dogma: I am God
Never odd or even
Too bad – I hid a boot
Rats live on no evil star
No trace; not one carton
Was it Eliot's toilet I saw?
Murder for a jar of red rum
May a moody baby doom a yam?
Go hang a salami; I'm a lasagna hog!
Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas!
A Toyota! Race fast... safe car: a Toyota
Straw? No, too stupid a fad; I put soot on warts
Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?
Doc Note: I dissent. A fast never prevents a fatness. I diet on cod
No, it never propagates if I set a gap or prevention
Anne, I vote more cars race Rome to Vienna
Sums are not set as a test on Erasmus
Kay, a red nude, peeped under a yak
Some men interpret nine memos
Campus Motto: Bottoms up, Mac
Go deliver a dare, vile dog!
Madam, in Eden I'm Adam
Oozy rat in a sanitary zoo
Ah, Satan sees Natasha
Lisa Bonet ate no basil
Do geese see God?
God saw I was dog
Dennis sinned
• Words like LIVE and STRAW (which read EVIL and WARTS backwards) are not themselves palindromes but the "phrases" LIVE EVIL and STRAW WARTS are. "semiordnilap" [a term coined by Lewis Caroll, by reversing the word "palindrome"!CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER, said Alice, although I can’t remember exactly where [Understanding Dyslexia ; Herbert von Karajan conducts the first movement of Verdi's Requiem at La Scala in 1967. The soloists are Leontyne Price, Fiorenza Cossotto, Luciano Pavarotti, and Nicolai Ghiaurov Suggestions of madness, passion, obsession; Tens of thousands of opinionated academics around the world have become internet bloggers while universities are increasingly establishing blogging sites on their web pages. Blogging has moved from being a nerdish undergraduate pastime to an accepted communication medium within the academic community ]
• · · Kevin, like Malchkeon, is an avid believer in the power of the senses. New York magazine recently featured the perfume world's Willy Wonka, Christopher Brosius' quest to create the invisible scent. A perfume only cer tain people can smell, something that smells so good, you can't smell it at all... Scent From Heaven - Les Must De Cartier Vintage;The first Cartier fragrance that broke
with the traditions of perfumery. For the first time, the very green note of
galbanum in an Oriental, an incomparable freshness...like ice cubes thrown into a fiery concentrate. Les Must de Cartier
• · · · It took more than two years for Michaelangelo to carve his famed David, but now you can have a mini-masterpiece of your own in a matter of moments. At a kiosk in the heart of Barcelona, if you stand briefly, a machine will produce a statuette replica of your pose... A lasting memory ; We are known by the trail of 0’s and 1’s we leave in our wake. Who owns that information? Is sharing it – creating a data commons – a civic duty?. Carving Data
• · · · · Playing and Traveling Light; LIKE A BOOMERANG hurled across three-plus decades and carrying today’s viewer back with it to that fervent, hard-edged but oddly innocent downtown moment when the free-for-all 1970s (free because no one had or was willing to admit to having money) gave way to the more practical and materialist ’80s, Ericka Beckman’s Super 8 “Piaget Trilogy” (1978–81) arrives on the Anthology Film Archives screen
• · · · · · Is a diary supposed to be read by anyone other than its writer? ; I am about to start reading Elizabeth Gilbert's second best selling memoir: Committed. It is hot on the heels of Eat, Pray, Love. Two memoirs on the best seller list from the same author is amazing, I think. Blogging and memoir--is there synergy? ; My favorite memoirs; This blog contains essays, book reviews, interviews, tips, techniques, and writing prompts for anyone interested in reading and writing memoirs Revealing Death and Other Courageous Acts of Life