Cutlery

"Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use."

Emily Post, author and columnist (1872-1960)

When the battle's lost and won

"No battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools."

William Faulkner, novelist (1897-1962)

If music be the food of force, play on!

"The best music is essentially there to provide you something to face the world with."

Bruce Springsteen, musician (b. 1949)

Viens dans la brume

Viens dans la brume

Jouer avec nous

perdre pied

avec

la réalité

le monde est morne et triste

sauf dans la brume

dans la brume

tout en subtilités

en nuances sincères

et nous jouons

sans cesse

à cache-cache

mais aussi à colin-maillard

et à mourir

c'est drôle

de jouer à mourir dans la brume

nous ne savons pas si c'est vrai

si c'est faux

et nous jouons

du matin jusqu'au matin

alors viens dans la brume

jouer avec nous

Loss and gain

I am giving up this world, for another.
That which was sensuous and calm
Is now hectic and
all the senses are in the mind's eye
catatonic yet hyperactive
brimming with life and teeming with death
life after life after life
unending and ever-different
tranquil, fishing in a clear stream,
raging in the midst of battle,
horn blowing and shattered shields across the plains.
Never was such a place trodden by a live man.
I am not giving up this world because it is stale, bland and colourless, no.
I am rather joining this other, ethereal one,
because life there has a meaning, and an end, as clear-cut
as a flawless ruby and as vaporous as the mist,
because brotherhood makes us braver, and more content.
Life there makes such a sense that it would be foolish not to delve into its most obscure and its brightest depths. Utterly foolish.
There, human dimensions scale down to Nature:
we rise in its abyss and descend in its heights.
The balance between this life, this death, on the edge of a knife
yet each is well worth the effort, the commitment, the sacrifice.
I am giving up this world because I have no other choice:
Life is too much about loss and gain not to live up to it.

And back again

"We all travel the milky way together, trees and men; but it never occurred to me until this storm-day, while swinging in the wind, that trees are travelers in the ordinary sense. They make many journeys, not extensive ones, it is true; but our own little journeys, away and back again, are only little more than tree-wavings -- many of them not so much."

John Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer (1838-1914)

The voice of the necessary

"The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak."

Hans Hofmann, painter (1880-1966)

King of my castle

"I am, indeed, a king, because I know how to rule myself."

Pietro Aretino, satirist and dramatist (1492-1556)

Loyalties

"It's impossible to be loyal to your family, your friends, your country, and your principles, all at the same time."

Mignon McLaughlin, journalist and author (1913-1983) 

Fish-it

“Academics like to eat shit, and in a pinch, they don’t care whose shit they eat.”

Stanley Fish (1938 - )


Many thanks to Seb for this one!