Humour is a prelude to faith and laughter is the beginning of prayer.
— Reinhold Niebuhr, born in 1892
It's not those who write the laws that have the greatest impact on society. It's those who write the songs
It's not those who write the laws that have the greatest impact on society. It's those who write the songs
~ Blaise Pascal, born in 1623
This was Bohemia! She glanced about. It was the explanation of the room. But it was impossible to imagine Trilby’s milk-call sounding at the door It was Bohemia; the table and chairs were Bohemian. Perhaps a big room like this would be even cheaper than a garret in St. Pancras. The neighbourhood did not matter. A bohemian room could hold its own anywhere. No furniture but chairs and a table, saying when you brought people in, “I am a Bohemian,” and having no one but Bohemians for friends.
Before we can be truly happy we must gain control of our minds. How am I to do so?
I think that for some reason when a man is driving Lexus down that Stuart Highway of love, the woman he’s with is like an exit, but he doesn’t want to get off there. He wants to keep driving. And the woman is like, “Look, petrol, food, accommodation, that’s our exit, that’s everything we need to be happy… Get off here, now!” But the man is focusing on sign underneath that says, “Next exit 77 kilometres,” and he thinks, “I can make it.”
The answer is simple: by obeying the Greek maxim, ‘Know thyself.’ Good! We are almost, it seems, at the end of our inquiry. Only one question remains: how am I to get to know myself? Ah! Now you’re asking. Saints and philosophers have been engaged on this simple question for some thousands of years but, unhappily, the answer is not yet to hand.
In blogosphere why a man becomes a poet is a question not to be asked ...
How Music Gets Into Our Brain And Messes With It
Understanding the mechanisms of violated expectations in music elucidates some of the basic functions of learning, memory, and our perception of time. Along with enhancing our understanding of music, the study of how we process expectations, and learn to revel in ambiguity and uncertainty, is important in understanding how we appreciate many aspects of art and life that involve solving puzzles and deciphering codes, from poetry to painting, science to math
NPR Best Music of the Year: “The best songs from the first half of 2018 serve many functions. Some reveal pain, others relieve it. Some guide us forward through the darkness, others eradicate it like a firework. Here are 35 favorites that put in work for us, each one the personal choice of one person at NPR Music or one of our partner stations around the country. (If you’re into playlists, there’s one here.)
Most public servants do face the music — even when given an out
VERONA BURGESS: The trouble with elephants in the room is that they don’t just go away of their own accord.
NPR Best Music of the Year: “The best songs from the first half of 2018 serve many functions. Some reveal pain, others relieve it. Some guide us forward through the darkness, others eradicate it like a firework. Here are 35 favorites that put in work for us, each one the personal choice of one person at NPR Music or one of our partner stations around the country. (If you’re into playlists, there’s one here.)
Most public servants do face the music — even when given an out
VERONA BURGESS: The trouble with elephants in the room is that they don’t just go away of their own accord.
As Stephens points out, Elvis Presley, Little Richard, James Brown, Johnny Cash, B. B. King, and Jerry Lee Lewis (cousin of Jimmy Swaggart, the now-defrocked televangelist) all grew up under the influence of Pentecostal or holiness churches. In those settings, religious experience for congregants of all colors was defined by its deep emotionality, submission to otherworldly forces, and all-consuming, overwhelming physicality. It shakes your nerves, and it rattles your brain. It breaks your will, but ooh, what a thrill. Goodness gracious, great balls of hellfire!
