Found: Wisdom

"Dost thou love life? Then waste not time; for time is the stuff that life is made of."

Benjamin Franklin

From: "Everything We Do"

It's a melancholy morning.

"Everything we do is for our first loves
whom we have lost irrevocably
who have married insurance salesmen
and moved to Topeka
and never think of us at all."

Liquid Paper: New and Selected Poems
Peter Meinke

From: Into The Wild

"Just remember, if you want something in this life, reach out and grab it."

Chris to Tracy in Into the Wild

I haven't read the book Into the Wild by Jon Krakaur even though some of my pals in Alaska carried around copies with copious notes scribbled into the margins. I suppose I'm afraid I might relate too much. However, the movie Into the Wild was like a painting and a poem had a baby.

If you don't know the story of Christopher McCandless, take a break from contributing to the GNP, and read about him.

UPDATE: I have now (3.15.9) read Into the Wild. It's heartbreaking and I'll never be the same.

Sunday Afternoon Song

Rarely do I post the entire lyrics of a song, but this song Rise is just so beautiful. Eddie Vedder is one of my favorite modern-day poets. I recommend you listen to this song, because it is one of those soulmate meetings of music and words.

Rise

Such is the way of the world
You can never know
Just where to put all your faith
And how will it grow

Gonna rise up
Bringing back holes and dark memories
Gonna rise up
Turning mistakes into gold

Such is the passage of time
Too fast to fold
And suddenly swallowed by signs
Low and behold

Gonna rise up
Find my direction magnetically
Gonna rise up
Throw down my haste in the road

Found: "Hints to Young People"

A couple of years ago, someone told me they were throwing out an attic full of old books, and I should come over and get whatever I want. When I got there I was told that all the books "worth anything" had been taken, but I found a few strange items to keep anyway.

Among them was the GAY'S ILLUSTRATED CIRCLE OF KNOWLEDGE : Forming a Household Library of Scientific and Useful Information--one of those strange old awesome books with intricately decorated title pages. It's awesome, and here is the first paragraph from an essay called, "Hints to Young People."

"Make the most and the best of yourself. Your destiny is in your own hands and your fortune will be your own making. Are you making the most of the one life that is intrusted to you? Are you putting to the best uses the natural abilities of body and mind with which you have been entrusted? Or are you droning through life, steadily and surely drifting behind those of less ability than yourself, men who with fewer talents than you possess are making the most of themselves.

Think of this. Put the question squarely to yourselves as we put it for you, and answer it honestly. Are you making the best of yourselves?

If not, now and only now is your chance; make a radical change and make it at once. Begin a new life and rise out of the old ruts. Do your own thinking and acting. Strive to be a man among men, [or a woman among women] with a worthy purpose and a pure ambition; then will the world not only be better for your living in it, but you will be better for having lived in the world."

There you go, young people. Thems some good hints.

Happy Birthday Kurt. Miss you.

"What else should I be? All apologies.
What else could I say? Everyone is gay.
What else could I write? I dont have the right
What else should I be? All apologies."

All Apologies
Kurt Cobain

From: "And So it Goes"

"In every heart there is a room
A sanctuary safe and strong
To heal the wounds from lovers past
Until a new one comes along...

And every time I've held a rose
It seems I only felt the thorns
And so it goes, and so it goes
And so will you soon I suppose

But if my silence made you leave
Then that would be my worst mistake
So I will share this room with you
And you can have this heart to break"

And So It Goes
Billy Joel

From: Story of a Girl

"I'd tell her about sex; the good stuff, like how it could be warm and exciting--it took you away--and the not-so-good things, like, how once you showed someone that part of yourself, you had to trust them one thousand percent and anything could happen. Someone you thought you knew could change and suddenly not want you, suddenly decide you made a better story than a girlfriend. Or how sometimes you might think you wanted to do it and then halfway through or afterward realize no, you just wanted the company, really; you wanted someone to choose you, and the sex part itself was like a trade-off, something you felt like you had to give to get the other part."

Story of a Girl

(a great book that made me sit back, laugh out loud, and say O.M.G.)
Sara Zarr

From: Almost Famous

Cameron Crowe is one of my favorite movie peeps. The other night, I watched a classic of his by the name of Almost Famous. I cliff-noted my favorite lines:

“Music chooses you.”

“You cannot make friends with rock stars.”

“Make your reputation on being honest and unmerciful.”

“If you ever get lonely, go to the record store and visit your friends.”

“Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid.” (Goethe, as quoted by William's mom)

“Friendship is the booze they feed you ‘cause they want you to get drunk on feeling like you belong.”

“Good looking people got no spines.”

“The only true currency in this world is what you share with someone when you’re uncool.”

“’To begin with, what do you love about music?
To begin with, everything.’”

Arts and Crafts: Marc Chagall

So, I always loved this painting because it's pretty and weird and because my name is in the middle of it.

When I decided to read more about this work, I learned that its title, La Mariee, is French for "The Bride," which explains the veil and bouquet.

Marc Chagall painted this in Paris in 1950.

Presidents Day

We're supposed to honor our two greatest presidents today, Washington and Lincoln.

I think we should honor Obama too, because he rocks.

Consider these words from his inaugural speech:

"To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."

To those of you who have off today, he also said this:

"In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less.

It has not been the path for the faint-hearted, for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame.

Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things -- some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor -- who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom."

In other words, get off your ass and do something.

Oh Captain, My Captain!

Poets to Come

Poets to Come Poets to come! orators, singers, musicians to come!
Not to-day is to justify me and answer what I am for,
But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than
before known,
Arouse! for you must justify me.
I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future,
I but advance a moment only to wheel and hurry back in the darkness.
I am a man who, sauntering along without fully stopping, turns a
casual look upon you and then averts his face,
Leaving it to you to prove and define it,
Expecting the main things from you.

Leaves of Grass

Walt Whitman

From: Stargirl

"She liked you, boy."

The intensity of his voice and eyes made me blink.

"Yes," I said.

"She did it for you, you know."

"What?"

"Gave up herself for a while there. She loved you that much. What an incredibly lucky kid you were."

I could not look at him. "I know."

He shook his head with a wistful sadness. "No, you don't. You can't know yet. Maybe someday..."


Stargirl
Jerry Spinelli

Valentine's Day

"All You Need is Love"

The Beatles

From: "Hurricane"

"'You'd only be doing society a favor.
That son of a bitch is brave and getting braver.'"

Hurricane
-Bob Dylan

From: "Dover Beach"

"Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! For the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light.

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night."

"Dover Beach"

-Matthew Arnold

Found: Funny Shiz

I don't care how nice it is. I don't want to go outside.

This blog cracks me up.

From: Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You

"Just ignore him and he'll go away, my mother used to say to Gillian when we were young and I bugged her. Just ignore him. All he wants is attention. In retrospect, there seems to be something almost cruel about that--to simultaneously acknowledge and refuse someone's desire for attention--especially a child's. All he wants is attention, as if it's bad to want attention, like wanting money or power or fame. Perhaps it's why I prefer to be ignored now; I've been warped in some irreversible away. Of course, I'm sure I've been warped in countless irreversible ways."

Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You

-Peter Cameron

Found:

"Good children's literature appeals not only to the child in the adult, but to the adult in the child."
-Anon.

From: "Father and Son"

"From the moment I could talk, I was ordered to listen."

"Father and Son"
-Cat Stevens

For Sale: Change, Hope, and Sarcasm

I love point-making t-shirts. Print Liberation made this one. Their other stuff is cool too.

Arts and Crafts: Diego Rivera

Isn't it pretty?

This painting is titled El Vendedor de Alcatraces (Translation: "The Flower Vendor"). Mexican artist Diego Rivera painted it in 1938.

We're all sort of carrying the weight of beauty on our backs, no?

From: "Bad Reputation"

"I don't give a damn 'bout my reputation
You're living in the past; it's a new generation

A girl can do what she wants to do
and that's what I'm gonna do."

"Bad Reputation"

-Joan Jett

From: "Redemption Song"

"Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds."
-Bob Marley

Today is Bob Marley's birthday!

From: Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You

"'Not everyone goes to college,' my father said. 'In fact, very few people go to college. It's a privilege to spend four years in the pursuit of knowledge.'"

Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You
-Peter Cameron