Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.
— Anne Frank, born in 1929
Robert Richman in “To Some of My Books' Former Owners” (Daughters of the Alphabet, 2003) honors them:
“Tracers of each chapter’s ebb and flow,
did you devote your hours of rain to reading,
or was it brisk, essential exercise?
You lost yourselves in all those printed sighs.
“Natasha Drummond and Gustavus Jones!
(Names beautiful as Homer’s epithets.)
Boarders in the land of death: what's new?
“I first became interested in the harm done by misinformation at my dad's workshop as he refused to listen to Communist or Soviet propaganda . . . we both loved the voices coming from the "Radio Free Europe"? It bonded us for ever ...Take a Walk on the Wild Side: Two Hours Spent Weekly in Nature Improves Health
Study shows higher self-reported levels of good health and subjective well-being for those who spend two hours weekly in touch with nature.
Poynter: “Peter Cunliffe-Jones is the founder of the fact-checking organizationAfrica Check. He delivered the keynote address at Global Fact 6, the annual meeting of the International Fact-checking Network. Below is an edited version of his remarks. “I first became interested in the harm done by misinformation because of a false rumor about vaccines that emerged, not online – in a WhatsApp group, or a hidden space on the dark web – but which started in a Nigerian mosque or mosques, spread to local newspapers, was picked up by a prominent local politician, reported as fact by national papers, and, when the false claims when unchallenged, saw him create bad policy — a vaccine ban — in his state of Kano in the north of the country. Misinformation is often described as spreading like a virus… How do we end the harm that that sort of misinformation causes? Rumors that spread in on- and off-line communities, and are turned into bad practice, or — if they make it to politicians — into bad policy? What Bill Adair says is true.
Above me hangs a puzzling, empty blue.”
Throughout modern history, there have been many books that have stirred up significant controversy. Some of these books were deemed so dangerous that their authors received real death and doorstopper threats, such as Salman Rushdie.
Here Are Ten of the Most Controversial Books Ever Released:
- The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
- The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Rage by Stephen King
- Scary Stories by Alvin Schwartz
- The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
- The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
- The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
- Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman; Illustrated by Diana Souza
- The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
- The Awakening by Kate Chopin
The centuries have settled on this table
Deepened the grain beneath a clean white cloth
Which bears afresh our changing elements.
Year after year of prayer, in hope and trouble,
Were poured out here and blessed and broken, both
In aching absence and in absent presence.
This table too the earth herself has given
And human hands have made. Where candle-flame
At corners burns and turns the air to light
The oak once held its branches up to heaven,
Blessing the elements which it became,
Rooting the dew and rain, branching the light.
And human hands have made. Where candle-flame
At corners burns and turns the air to light
The oak once held its branches up to heaven,
Blessing the elements which it became,
Rooting the dew and rain, branching the light.
Because another tree can bear, unbearable,
For us, the weight of Love, so can this table
Wonderful song from Chet Atkins reminded me of my dadFor us, the weight of Love, so can this table
Chet Atkins - I Still Can't Say Goodbye HQ
When I was young
My dad would say
"C'mon son, let's go out and play"
Sometimes it seems like yesterday
And I'd climb up the closet shelf
When I was all by myself
Grab his hat and fix the brim
Pretending I was him
No matter how hard I try
No matter how many tears I cry
No matter how many years go by
I still can't say good-bye
He always took care
Of Mom and me
We all cut down a Christmas tree
He always had some time for me
Wind blows through the trees
Street lights, they still shine bright
Most things are the same
But I miss my dad tonight
I walked by a Salvation Army store
Saw a hat like my daddy wore
Tried it on when I walked in
Still trying to be like him
No matter how hard I try
No matter how many years go by
No matter how many tears I cry
I still can't say good-bye
Most of what happens happens beyond words.
The lexicon of lip and fingertip defies translation into common speech.
I recognize the musk of your dark hair.
It always thrills me, though I can’t describe it.
My finger on your thigh does not touch skin— it touches your skin warming to my touch.
You are a language I have learned by heart.
This intimate patois will vanish with us, its only native speakers.
Does it matter?
Our tribal chants, our dances round the fire performed the sorcery we most required.
They bound us in a spell time could not break.
Let the young vaunt their ecstasy.
We keep our tribe of two in sovereign secrecy.
What must be lost was never lost on us.
In an era that celebrates sturm und drang, poets write of abusive relationships, and the anguish of unrequited love, or the torments of triangular love – but how many write of long and happy fidelity?
The late great Richard Wilbur, notably, mocks the romantic conventions and instead praises (read the whole thing here) his marriage …
which, though taken to be tame and staid, Is a wild sostenuto of the heart, A passion joined to courtesy and art Which has the quality of something made, Like a good fiddle, like the rose’s scent, Like a rose window or the firmament.