Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence.
Helen Keller
******************
Hello Borneo
*********************
The electricity went off in the neighborhood this evening. I was suddenly transformed into darkness and also into silence. I couldn't listen to music. I couldn't read, write or paint. So I sat still in my room to watch and listen.
There is a different kind of music in the silence. It's not the familiar songs in memory but a never ending and never repeating symphony of sound. It does not ask to be heard, but will sing for whomever listens. It is a music that can not be played on any earthly instruments and all the music of earth is not much more than a mumble compare to it. Musicians will try to capture it and invite it to live on their strings. But it sings on above the fingers and lips that can only whisper it.
There are visions in the darkeners beyond describing in terms of the daily fiction we live, with our duties, our day dreams and our night dreams. It transcends the very fundamental beliefs of humans. It sprays an abundance of beauty not known or understood by all the artists who strive to grasp and reproduce it.
The sounds and sights of stillness do not try to invade our lives. They play their immortal games with joy and don't care who knows it.
I'm grateful to have been taken, unwillingly, to the place where wonders live of silent sounds and invisible sights.. I must do it more often.
DB - The Vagabond
************************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
This Week's Contest
This is one I put up a few years ago and people seemed to enjoy it, so here it goes again.
You are now ordered to take a famous remark, a cliche or otherwise and restate it in the most verbose manner possible. Example:
Night is an inappropriate time for the manufacture of animal feed.
(Make hay while the sun shines.)
Get it? Ken Riches won this contest the last time, so you're up against some heavy competition.
5 entries so far.
dbdacoba@aol.com
Good luck. Enter as often as you wish. The decision of the ornery, biased, curmudgeon is final.
DB
******************
Friday, April 15, 2011
Thursday, April 14, 2011
The Adventure
The road to success and career fulfillment is not straight, it's not a super highway and it's not without potholes.
Patty Talahongua (Hopi)
****************************
Hello Ambriz, Angola Good fishing.
************************************
Recently someone suggested that since he thought I had had such an interesting and adventuresome life I should write an autobiography. I don't think I will. But one thing I'm sure of is that if I did and a conscientious, researching journalist wrote a biography of me, other than names and dates the two books would not resemble each other. It would be due simply to the fact that an objective appraisal of a human action is usually far from the subjective context of it, which is much richer in meaning. And what I might consider an important thread in my life a biographer may see as trivial, and vice versa.
In my autobiography there would certainly be no mention of certain things I said and did, not because I don't have the courage to write about them but because I would want to be remembered by and identified by the best of my actions and experiences.
There's a Dakota proverb that says "We will be known forever by the tracks we leave.: We can't help leaving tracks in other people's lives, especially on the twisting, potholed road to fulfillment. Some of those tracks can be harsh and hurting. One can hope that things will turn out for the best, amd many will. But there are footprints and crumbs I've left behind me that I would just as soon forget about.
I'm glad I traveled the road I did. It was hard and difficult. I could have chosen not to follow it. One always has the choice of looking for and finding the permanent resting place, the elysian field where dreams remain dreams, where one's potentials are woven into a crazy quilt of maybes that keeps us warm in the winter and where the answer to the question of why didn't I is answered by "I didn't want to take the chance, it was too scary. I may be bored, but I'm not frightened."
I didn't set out to have an adventuresome life, but the choices I made thrust adventures on me, some of them dangerous pot holes. I have had many lonely days and many frightening days, but I haven't had a boring day since I can remember.
So let the biographer write of me as he will, if he really wants to. As for my autobiography it has, for seven decades, today and perhaps forever, consisted of only one word: "vagabond."
DB
**************
This Week's Contest
This is one I put up a few years ago and people seemed to enjoy it so here it goes again.
You are now ordered to take a famous remark, a cliche or otherwise and restate it in the most verbose manner possible. Example:
Night is an inappropriate time for the manufacture of animal feed.
(Make hay while the sun shines.)
Get it? Ken Riches won this contest the last time, so you're up against some heavy competition.
Good luck. The decision of the ornery, biased, curmudgeon is final.
DB
******************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Patty Talahongua (Hopi)
****************************
Hello Ambriz, Angola Good fishing.
************************************
Recently someone suggested that since he thought I had had such an interesting and adventuresome life I should write an autobiography. I don't think I will. But one thing I'm sure of is that if I did and a conscientious, researching journalist wrote a biography of me, other than names and dates the two books would not resemble each other. It would be due simply to the fact that an objective appraisal of a human action is usually far from the subjective context of it, which is much richer in meaning. And what I might consider an important thread in my life a biographer may see as trivial, and vice versa.
In my autobiography there would certainly be no mention of certain things I said and did, not because I don't have the courage to write about them but because I would want to be remembered by and identified by the best of my actions and experiences.
There's a Dakota proverb that says "We will be known forever by the tracks we leave.: We can't help leaving tracks in other people's lives, especially on the twisting, potholed road to fulfillment. Some of those tracks can be harsh and hurting. One can hope that things will turn out for the best, amd many will. But there are footprints and crumbs I've left behind me that I would just as soon forget about.
I'm glad I traveled the road I did. It was hard and difficult. I could have chosen not to follow it. One always has the choice of looking for and finding the permanent resting place, the elysian field where dreams remain dreams, where one's potentials are woven into a crazy quilt of maybes that keeps us warm in the winter and where the answer to the question of why didn't I is answered by "I didn't want to take the chance, it was too scary. I may be bored, but I'm not frightened."
I didn't set out to have an adventuresome life, but the choices I made thrust adventures on me, some of them dangerous pot holes. I have had many lonely days and many frightening days, but I haven't had a boring day since I can remember.
So let the biographer write of me as he will, if he really wants to. As for my autobiography it has, for seven decades, today and perhaps forever, consisted of only one word: "vagabond."
DB
**************
This Week's Contest
This is one I put up a few years ago and people seemed to enjoy it so here it goes again.
You are now ordered to take a famous remark, a cliche or otherwise and restate it in the most verbose manner possible. Example:
Night is an inappropriate time for the manufacture of animal feed.
(Make hay while the sun shines.)
Get it? Ken Riches won this contest the last time, so you're up against some heavy competition.
Good luck. The decision of the ornery, biased, curmudgeon is final.
DB
******************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Sportsmenlike Conduct
One ought to think for a very long time before thinking of condemning others.
Moliere
****************
Hello Brest, Belarus
*********************
Is violence becoming the American way of life? Is civility finally drifting out of our civilization and leaving behind a land of terrorists? So a Giant fan was beaten up in the Dodgers Stadium parking lot and is now in a coma. So what? It's baseball. It's important.
Players smashing into other players is the thrill of ice hockey. More players are carried off the football fields than ever were. I keep reading about what goes on in soccer games when the fans get unruly and the stadium comes down. Come on. Basketball players are easy targets. So are marathon runners.
If you can't beat up all the opposing fans, you can do what the sports Dad's do and go after the referee when your kid or your side gets a call you don't like. Knock him down.
If the other guy is about to win the tennis match, don't waste time, jump over the net and smack over the head a few times with your tennis racket. That should teach him a lesson.
When you're on the last golf green and another player is within one stroke of winning the tournament don't stand around gawking, have your buddies come out with clubs and break his knees.
Now lets see, there must be some way we can work the grand old red, white a blue violence into high jumping, discus throwing and table tennis.
This is nothing new, of course. When you read that some of our esteemed founding fathers would come into the floor of the House and Senate during the first few congresses and beat each other with sticks, you realize that some of the rules of condemnation were laid out early on.
I think it would be politically correct if a Republican and a Democrat were to duke it out on the floor of the House of Representatives. Don't you? Then we would know who is right.
If you don't like a guy's religion, burn his book. If you don't like a guy's sexuality, beat him up. If you don't like a guy's politics, buy a gun and shoot him, as happened in Arizona not too long ago.
What happened to civilized behavior? Where is it? What happened to American civilization? Where did it go?
DB - The Vagabond
???????????????????????????
This Week's Contest
This is one I put up a few years ago and people seemed to enjoy it so here it goes again.
You are now ordered to take a famous remark, a cliche or otherwise and restate it in the most verbose manner possible. Example:
Night is an inappropriate time for the manufacture of animal feed.
(Make hay while the sun shines.)
Get it? Ken Riches won this contest the last time, so you're up against some heavy competition.
Good luck. The decision of the ornery, biased, curmudgeon is final.
DB
******************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Moliere
****************
Hello Brest, Belarus
*********************
Is violence becoming the American way of life? Is civility finally drifting out of our civilization and leaving behind a land of terrorists? So a Giant fan was beaten up in the Dodgers Stadium parking lot and is now in a coma. So what? It's baseball. It's important.
Players smashing into other players is the thrill of ice hockey. More players are carried off the football fields than ever were. I keep reading about what goes on in soccer games when the fans get unruly and the stadium comes down. Come on. Basketball players are easy targets. So are marathon runners.
If you can't beat up all the opposing fans, you can do what the sports Dad's do and go after the referee when your kid or your side gets a call you don't like. Knock him down.
If the other guy is about to win the tennis match, don't waste time, jump over the net and smack over the head a few times with your tennis racket. That should teach him a lesson.
When you're on the last golf green and another player is within one stroke of winning the tournament don't stand around gawking, have your buddies come out with clubs and break his knees.
Now lets see, there must be some way we can work the grand old red, white a blue violence into high jumping, discus throwing and table tennis.
This is nothing new, of course. When you read that some of our esteemed founding fathers would come into the floor of the House and Senate during the first few congresses and beat each other with sticks, you realize that some of the rules of condemnation were laid out early on.
I think it would be politically correct if a Republican and a Democrat were to duke it out on the floor of the House of Representatives. Don't you? Then we would know who is right.
If you don't like a guy's religion, burn his book. If you don't like a guy's sexuality, beat him up. If you don't like a guy's politics, buy a gun and shoot him, as happened in Arizona not too long ago.
What happened to civilized behavior? Where is it? What happened to American civilization? Where did it go?
DB - The Vagabond
???????????????????????????
This Week's Contest
This is one I put up a few years ago and people seemed to enjoy it so here it goes again.
You are now ordered to take a famous remark, a cliche or otherwise and restate it in the most verbose manner possible. Example:
Night is an inappropriate time for the manufacture of animal feed.
(Make hay while the sun shines.)
Get it? Ken Riches won this contest the last time, so you're up against some heavy competition.
Good luck. The decision of the ornery, biased, curmudgeon is final.
DB
******************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Over Do It
Every artists knows how far from any feeling of letting himself go his most "natural" state is.
Friedrich Nietzsche
*************************
Hello Bregenz, Austria
***********************
A wise man once said that he treats everything with moderation, even moderation. That word "moderation" is probably the most useless word in the world of art and artists. Unless we are "out on a limb" where most people consider it excessive, unless we are in those dangerous places of opulence, magnanimity and ripeness we can't make the discoveries and produce the marvels that are so beloved by the rest of the world.
Think of the lush paintings of Rubens, Botticelli and Rembrandt, the vigorous poetry of Shakespeare or John Donne, the novels of Dostoevski. There is nothing moderate about any of their works. If you say Tchaikovski, most people think of the 1812 Overture. Where's the moderation in that?
One day a colleague and I went to visit a class of high school seniors who had seen our play. Questions were asked and one boy asked what life was like in the theatre. I asked him if he was thinking about a life in the theatre. He said "Mildly." My colleague said "Well, if you're thinking about it mildly don't think about it." And that brought on a discussion of what it was like for professional actors, how there was nothing mild about it, how it was with us every moment, how it was a constant occupation and preoccupation of our thoughts and lives, as it is with any artist.
I explained that we were not addicted, obsessed or insane but that we were committed to it and that it ranked in our lives above any other activity. I told the boy he might stop thinking mildly about it and start thinking passionately. Or he may soon discover something else to which he knows he can honestly commit his life.
Every day I sit here and write a entry into the Vagabond Journes and I often wonder why I do it. There is usually some mud the computer wants to throw on my page. Tonight it's that some girl scout stole my cookies so I have to reregister for every place I want to log in to. But I also wonder about the seeming futility of what I am doing. Maybe 15 people out of the millions in the world read my journal and maybe I will get 2 or 3 comments. It seems unlikely that any words will reach the shores where they can do the most good, unless I publish, which I would love to do if I knew how.
So why do I keep writing?
DB - Vagabond Journeys
***************************
This Week's Contest
This is one I put up a few years ago and people seemed to enjoy it so here it goes again.
You are now ordered to take a famous remark, a cliche or otherwise and restate it in the most verbose manner possible. Example:
Night is an inappropriate time for the manufacture of animal feed.
(Make hay while the sun shines.)
Get it? Ken Riches won this contest the last time, so you're up against some heavy competition.
Good luck. The decision of the ornery, biased, curmudgeon is final.
DB
******************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Friedrich Nietzsche
*************************
Hello Bregenz, Austria
***********************
A wise man once said that he treats everything with moderation, even moderation. That word "moderation" is probably the most useless word in the world of art and artists. Unless we are "out on a limb" where most people consider it excessive, unless we are in those dangerous places of opulence, magnanimity and ripeness we can't make the discoveries and produce the marvels that are so beloved by the rest of the world.
Think of the lush paintings of Rubens, Botticelli and Rembrandt, the vigorous poetry of Shakespeare or John Donne, the novels of Dostoevski. There is nothing moderate about any of their works. If you say Tchaikovski, most people think of the 1812 Overture. Where's the moderation in that?
One day a colleague and I went to visit a class of high school seniors who had seen our play. Questions were asked and one boy asked what life was like in the theatre. I asked him if he was thinking about a life in the theatre. He said "Mildly." My colleague said "Well, if you're thinking about it mildly don't think about it." And that brought on a discussion of what it was like for professional actors, how there was nothing mild about it, how it was with us every moment, how it was a constant occupation and preoccupation of our thoughts and lives, as it is with any artist.
I explained that we were not addicted, obsessed or insane but that we were committed to it and that it ranked in our lives above any other activity. I told the boy he might stop thinking mildly about it and start thinking passionately. Or he may soon discover something else to which he knows he can honestly commit his life.
Every day I sit here and write a entry into the Vagabond Journes and I often wonder why I do it. There is usually some mud the computer wants to throw on my page. Tonight it's that some girl scout stole my cookies so I have to reregister for every place I want to log in to. But I also wonder about the seeming futility of what I am doing. Maybe 15 people out of the millions in the world read my journal and maybe I will get 2 or 3 comments. It seems unlikely that any words will reach the shores where they can do the most good, unless I publish, which I would love to do if I knew how.
So why do I keep writing?
DB - Vagabond Journeys
***************************
This Week's Contest
This is one I put up a few years ago and people seemed to enjoy it so here it goes again.
You are now ordered to take a famous remark, a cliche or otherwise and restate it in the most verbose manner possible. Example:
Night is an inappropriate time for the manufacture of animal feed.
(Make hay while the sun shines.)
Get it? Ken Riches won this contest the last time, so you're up against some heavy competition.
Good luck. The decision of the ornery, biased, curmudgeon is final.
DB
******************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Monday, April 11, 2011
I'm The Dolt
The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself in spite of being unacceptable.
Paul Tillich
***********************
Hello Barbados
***********************
I can't think of anyone who frustrates and annoys me more than myself. My life is a living example of Murphy's Law. I need to wear a sign that says "DOLT" when I go out in public so everyone will be forewarned.
I did my income tax today and as usual I got it all finished and in the stamped envelop when I discovered something I forgot and had to redo the whole thing. I used to have it done by the end of February, but these days I have too much to do. I need a personal accountant, lawyer, butler, maid. cook, chauffeur, masseuse, a clinic full of the proper doctors and nurses, a closet full of new clothes, a couple of cats to frolic in the back yard, a dog to walk me every day and a big house to keep them all. In short, I need to be a billionaire so that I would have the people around me to take care of and clean up after the doltish things I do.
Instead I have a few twittery birds on the balcony, eating up all my bird seeds and no one else around (thank goodness) to witness the perilous circumstances I have made and keep making for myself.
I question why I put up with me. No one else would. I think it has something to do with worth, value or permission. I feel i have never achieved and probably never will the one thing that certifies me, that pays the price of having been born, that compensates the world for allowing me to be a citizen of it.
Wouldn't it be something if everything was harmonious? To see the sleek appearance of rightness and fitness everywhere, to realize an unbreakable alliance of beauty and logic, to have one's honest hopes meld into graceful realities, and never have to face problems whose solutions are elusive or questions that have no answers, is to live the acceptable life. Everything is less than, including me.
No I'm not putting myself down. I'm accepting myself as being unacceptable. It gives me something to strive for, and that's probably why I have too much to do. I would have a lot more time to do things it I didn't persist in making doltish mistakes. The only thing I can say for myself is that it's a damn good thing I have a sense of humor.
DB - Vagabond
********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
This Week's Contest
This is one I put up a few years ago and people seemed to enjoy it, so here it goes again.
You are now ordered to take a famous remark, a cliche or otherwise and restate it in the most verbose manner possible. Example:
Night is an inappropriate time for the manufacture of animal feed.
(Make hay while the sun shines.)
Get it? Ken Riches won this contest the last time, so you're up against some heavy competition.
5 entries so far.
dbdacoba@aol.com
Good luck. Enter as often as you wish. The decision of the ornery, biased, curmudgeon is final.
DB
******************
Paul Tillich
***********************
Hello Barbados
***********************
I can't think of anyone who frustrates and annoys me more than myself. My life is a living example of Murphy's Law. I need to wear a sign that says "DOLT" when I go out in public so everyone will be forewarned.
I did my income tax today and as usual I got it all finished and in the stamped envelop when I discovered something I forgot and had to redo the whole thing. I used to have it done by the end of February, but these days I have too much to do. I need a personal accountant, lawyer, butler, maid. cook, chauffeur, masseuse, a clinic full of the proper doctors and nurses, a closet full of new clothes, a couple of cats to frolic in the back yard, a dog to walk me every day and a big house to keep them all. In short, I need to be a billionaire so that I would have the people around me to take care of and clean up after the doltish things I do.
Instead I have a few twittery birds on the balcony, eating up all my bird seeds and no one else around (thank goodness) to witness the perilous circumstances I have made and keep making for myself.
I question why I put up with me. No one else would. I think it has something to do with worth, value or permission. I feel i have never achieved and probably never will the one thing that certifies me, that pays the price of having been born, that compensates the world for allowing me to be a citizen of it.
Wouldn't it be something if everything was harmonious? To see the sleek appearance of rightness and fitness everywhere, to realize an unbreakable alliance of beauty and logic, to have one's honest hopes meld into graceful realities, and never have to face problems whose solutions are elusive or questions that have no answers, is to live the acceptable life. Everything is less than, including me.
No I'm not putting myself down. I'm accepting myself as being unacceptable. It gives me something to strive for, and that's probably why I have too much to do. I would have a lot more time to do things it I didn't persist in making doltish mistakes. The only thing I can say for myself is that it's a damn good thing I have a sense of humor.
DB - Vagabond
********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
This Week's Contest
This is one I put up a few years ago and people seemed to enjoy it, so here it goes again.
You are now ordered to take a famous remark, a cliche or otherwise and restate it in the most verbose manner possible. Example:
Night is an inappropriate time for the manufacture of animal feed.
(Make hay while the sun shines.)
Get it? Ken Riches won this contest the last time, so you're up against some heavy competition.
5 entries so far.
dbdacoba@aol.com
Good luck. Enter as often as you wish. The decision of the ornery, biased, curmudgeon is final.
DB
******************
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Up We Go
Why do you climb the philosophical hills? Because they are worth climbing.
Margaret Thatcher
*************************
Hello Arkadelphia, Arkansas.
*******************************
Why are they worth it? What is the value in huffing and puffing up the steep trails of ethics, aesthetics, politics, poetics and economics? Where is the profit in struggling through the jungles of logic and semantics? Then what is to be gained from coming out onto the sheer and treacherous slopes of cosmology and metaphysics?
Why make the effort? Why not just order a pizza, kick off your shoes, crack a beer, flick on the TV and enjoy a good ball game? I must admit there are many times when I just want to relax into the simple, limited thinking of my own mental world. And I would if I hadn't been permanently alarmed at my own lack of knowledge and understanding of the world of ideas that are shaping everything around me and will eventually affect me and my life, if they haven't already.
Some of the gentler philosophers like Bertrand Russell will take me by the elbow and lead me this way or that. The more vigorous ones like Friedrich Nietzsche will grab me by the beard and yank me into understanding. Either way it's a life changing experience to be thrust into a place high up in the rarified atmosphere of thought where few have been before.
The philosopher, like the artist and the inventor, is searching for the invisible, cataloguing the unknown. A philosopher may attempt to understand and define the short term and long term destiny of humanity by observing human history and human behavior. He may attempt to define man's relationship to the universe, as a creature of it, through cosmological observations. He may reach the enlightened place in his thinking where things disappear and are replaced by thoughts. If he achieves that inspired place he will have fulfilled all the duties of his watch.
I, following, stumbling and tripping, climb as best as I can, the slippery philosophical hills.
DB - The Vagabond
**********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
This Week's Contest
This is one I put up a few years ago and people seemed to enjoy it, so here it goes again.
You are now ordered to take a famous remark, a cliche or otherwise and restate it in the most verbose manner possible. Example:
Night is an inappropriate time for the manufacture of animal feed.
(Make hay while the sun shines.)
Get it? Ken Riches won this contest the last time, so you're up against some heavy competition.
5 entries so far.
dbdacoba@aol.com
Good luck. Enter as often as you wish. The decision of the ornery, biased, curmudgeon is final.
DB
******************
Margaret Thatcher
*************************
Hello Arkadelphia, Arkansas.
*******************************
Why are they worth it? What is the value in huffing and puffing up the steep trails of ethics, aesthetics, politics, poetics and economics? Where is the profit in struggling through the jungles of logic and semantics? Then what is to be gained from coming out onto the sheer and treacherous slopes of cosmology and metaphysics?
Why make the effort? Why not just order a pizza, kick off your shoes, crack a beer, flick on the TV and enjoy a good ball game? I must admit there are many times when I just want to relax into the simple, limited thinking of my own mental world. And I would if I hadn't been permanently alarmed at my own lack of knowledge and understanding of the world of ideas that are shaping everything around me and will eventually affect me and my life, if they haven't already.
Some of the gentler philosophers like Bertrand Russell will take me by the elbow and lead me this way or that. The more vigorous ones like Friedrich Nietzsche will grab me by the beard and yank me into understanding. Either way it's a life changing experience to be thrust into a place high up in the rarified atmosphere of thought where few have been before.
The philosopher, like the artist and the inventor, is searching for the invisible, cataloguing the unknown. A philosopher may attempt to understand and define the short term and long term destiny of humanity by observing human history and human behavior. He may attempt to define man's relationship to the universe, as a creature of it, through cosmological observations. He may reach the enlightened place in his thinking where things disappear and are replaced by thoughts. If he achieves that inspired place he will have fulfilled all the duties of his watch.
I, following, stumbling and tripping, climb as best as I can, the slippery philosophical hills.
DB - The Vagabond
**********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
This Week's Contest
This is one I put up a few years ago and people seemed to enjoy it, so here it goes again.
You are now ordered to take a famous remark, a cliche or otherwise and restate it in the most verbose manner possible. Example:
Night is an inappropriate time for the manufacture of animal feed.
(Make hay while the sun shines.)
Get it? Ken Riches won this contest the last time, so you're up against some heavy competition.
5 entries so far.
dbdacoba@aol.com
Good luck. Enter as often as you wish. The decision of the ornery, biased, curmudgeon is final.
DB
******************
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Brushed Off Strokes
I am a poor student sitting at the feet of giants, yearning for their wisdom and begging for lessons that might one day make me a complete artist, so that if all goes well, I may one day sit beside them.
Rod Taylor
********************
Hello Cotonou, Benin. Have a peaceful day.
*********************
There can be great sadness in missed opportunities. We can regret those things that were almost in our hands but somehow slipped away, those things that we hoped for and expected one day we would achieve and those things that we carry with us as dreams, only to realize one day the dreams will never become realities.
When I was at the Art Students League in New York City I took life drawing classes from three excellent teachers and a course in anatomy for artists with a fourth. One day one of my teachers encouraged me to start painting. I have been painting since but I never got to study painting with a teacher.
My enthusiasm for art was slow in coming, I was in my 40's before I ever began to draw. The League offered courses in illustration, realistic and abstract painting, water color and murals. It taught graphic arts, etching, engraving, lithography, wood cutting and linoleum cutting. There were classes in sculpture: wood, stone and clay sculpture.
I was so hungry for it I wanted to learn all of it. There were inspiring teachers there, some of them famous artists. I was looking forward, even in my advanced years, to sit at their feet and get their wisdom. But, unfotunately my career as an actor interfered. That wouldn't have been so bad except that it took me out of town for many months, and since it was the way I made a living and enabled me to pay for the art classes, I needed to go. When I was back in New York I was looking for work and didn't have the money to pay for any classes.
Years later I went back to the League and took some drawing classes, but it wasn't the same and I soon saw that the hopes of really learning about all the possibilities of artistic expression that had been available to me as a student were going to be lost.
Now I still yearn for that knowledge but there is no access to it other than books and magazines which I pour over. I don't even know if I would have ever become as great an artist as those I admired. It doesn't matter. I just wanted to know what they knew.
That I was never able to fully follow that desire is one of the sadnesses of my days.
Moral: Follow your dreams, even if you have to go slowly.
DB - The Vagabond
*********************
This Week's Contest
This is one I put up a few years ago and people seemed to enjoy it, so here it goes again.
You are now ordered to take a famous remark, a cliche or otherwise and restate it in the most verbose manner possible. Example:
Night is an inappropriate time for the manufacture of animal feed.
(Make hay while the sun shines.)
Get it? Ken Riches won this contest the last time, so you're up against some heavy competition.
dbdacoba@aol.com
Good luck. Enter as often as you wish. The decision of the ornery, biased, curmudgeon is final.
DB
******************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Rod Taylor
********************
Hello Cotonou, Benin. Have a peaceful day.
*********************
There can be great sadness in missed opportunities. We can regret those things that were almost in our hands but somehow slipped away, those things that we hoped for and expected one day we would achieve and those things that we carry with us as dreams, only to realize one day the dreams will never become realities.
When I was at the Art Students League in New York City I took life drawing classes from three excellent teachers and a course in anatomy for artists with a fourth. One day one of my teachers encouraged me to start painting. I have been painting since but I never got to study painting with a teacher.
My enthusiasm for art was slow in coming, I was in my 40's before I ever began to draw. The League offered courses in illustration, realistic and abstract painting, water color and murals. It taught graphic arts, etching, engraving, lithography, wood cutting and linoleum cutting. There were classes in sculpture: wood, stone and clay sculpture.
I was so hungry for it I wanted to learn all of it. There were inspiring teachers there, some of them famous artists. I was looking forward, even in my advanced years, to sit at their feet and get their wisdom. But, unfotunately my career as an actor interfered. That wouldn't have been so bad except that it took me out of town for many months, and since it was the way I made a living and enabled me to pay for the art classes, I needed to go. When I was back in New York I was looking for work and didn't have the money to pay for any classes.
Years later I went back to the League and took some drawing classes, but it wasn't the same and I soon saw that the hopes of really learning about all the possibilities of artistic expression that had been available to me as a student were going to be lost.
Now I still yearn for that knowledge but there is no access to it other than books and magazines which I pour over. I don't even know if I would have ever become as great an artist as those I admired. It doesn't matter. I just wanted to know what they knew.
That I was never able to fully follow that desire is one of the sadnesses of my days.
Moral: Follow your dreams, even if you have to go slowly.
DB - The Vagabond
*********************
This Week's Contest
This is one I put up a few years ago and people seemed to enjoy it, so here it goes again.
You are now ordered to take a famous remark, a cliche or otherwise and restate it in the most verbose manner possible. Example:
Night is an inappropriate time for the manufacture of animal feed.
(Make hay while the sun shines.)
Get it? Ken Riches won this contest the last time, so you're up against some heavy competition.
dbdacoba@aol.com
Good luck. Enter as often as you wish. The decision of the ornery, biased, curmudgeon is final.
DB
******************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)