The purpose of art

What can art accomplish?
The purpose of art is to accumulate
the human within the human being.

Svetlana Alexievich, Nobel Prize Banquet Speech 

 

 

 

 

 

Who is right?

I hold that man is in the right
who is most closely in league with the future.

    Henrik Ibsen, Letter to Georg Brandes

Stuck

We are stuck with technology
    when what we really want
        is just stuff that works.

                Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt

 

 

 

 

 

Either or

Anyone who tries to make a distinction
between education and entertainment
doesn’t know the first thing about either.

        Marshall McLuhan, Explorations

 

 

 

 

Memorial Day Sonnet

We don't want your celebration,
We don't want you to honor us.
All we want is for you to grow up,
And end all tribalism that kills us.
A thousand holidays can't bring us back,
Nor can they wipe the tears of our spouses.
How will you console our children,
How will you comfort our broken parents!
Enough with your flowers and rituals,
Enough with your crocodile care!
If you have an iota of humanity,
Step up and make all divides disappear.
Yet if you still want to live life as tribal,
Rest assured we'll give ours with a smile.

    Abhijit Naskar, Mucize Insan: When The World is Family

 

 

 

 

Understanding fate

The road will never swallow you.
The river of destiny will always overcome evil.
May you understand your fate.
Suffering will never destroy you,
but will make you stronger.
Success will never confuse you or scatter your spirit,
but will make you fly higher into the good sunlight.
Your life will always surprise you.

            Ben Okri, The Famished Road

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: Celia, Celia

When I am sad and weary
When I think all hope has gone
When I walk along High Holborn
I think of you with nothing on

        Adrian Mitchell

 

 

 

 

Our times

These times of ours are serious and full of calamity,
    but all times are essentially alike.
        As soon as there is life there is danger.

            Ralph Waldo Emerson, Public and Private Education lecture

True scarcity

There’s never enough time to do all the nothing you want.

        Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

 

 

 

 

What do you know?

You can live a lifetime and, at the end of it,
know more about other people than you know about yourself.

        Beryl Markham, West with the Night

 

 

 

 

Job hunt

Now that all your worry
has proved such an unlucrative business,
Why not find a better job?

Hafiz,  translation by Daniel Ladinsky

Mind your manners

Comfort has its place,
    but it seems rude to visit another country
        dressed as if you’ve come to mow its lawns.

                David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day 

 

 

 

 

 

A faith of verbs

This is my living faith, an active faith, a faith of verbs:
to question, explore, experiment, experience, walk, run,
dance, play, eat, love, learn, dare, taste, touch, smell, listen,
speak, write, read, draw, provoke, emote, scream, sin, repent,
cry, kneel, pray, bow, rise, stand, look, laugh, cajole, create,
confront, confound, walk back, walk forward, circle, hide, and seek.

            Terry Tempest Williams, Leap

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: Velocity

In the club car that morning I had my notebook
open on my lap and my pen uncapped,
looking every inch the writer
right down to the little writer’s frown on my face,

but there was nothing to write about
except life and death
and the low warning sound of the train whistle.

I did not want to write about the scenery
that was flashing past, cows spread over a pasture,
hay rolled up meticulously –
things you see once and will never see again.

But I kept my pen moving by drawing
over and over again
the face of a motorcyclist in profile –

for no reason I can think of –
a biker with sunglasses and a weak chin,
leaning forward, helmetless,
his long thin hair trailing behind him in the wind.

I also drew many lines to indicate speed,
to show the air becoming visible
as it broke over the biker’s face

the way it was breaking over the face
of the locomotive that was pulling me
toward Omaha and whatever lay beyond Omaha
for me and all the other stops to make

before the time would arrive to stop for good.
We must always look at things
from the point of view of eternity,

the college theologians used to insist,
from which, I imagine, we would all
appear to have speed lines trailing behind us
as we rush along the road of the world,

as we rush down the long tunnel of time –
the biker, of course, drunk on the wind,
but also the man reading by a fire,

speed lines coming off his shoulders and his book,
and the woman standing on a beach
studying the curve of horizon,
even the child asleep on a summer night,

speed lines flying from the posters of her bed,
from the white tips of the pillowcases,
and from the edges of her perfectly motionless body.

 

                        Billy Collins

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

70 years ago today

We must consider public education in the light of its full development and its present place in American life throughout the Nation. Only in this way can it be determined if segregation in public schools deprives these plaintiffs of the equal protection of the laws.

Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. Compulsory school attendance laws and the great expenditures for education both demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education to our democratic society. It is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. It is the very foundation of good citizenship. Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.

We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does. . . .

To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone. . . .

We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. This disposition makes unnecessary any discussion whether such segregation also violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Excerpted from the unanimous Supreme Court decision
Brown v. Board of Education
May 17, 1954
Full text can be read here

What matters

If you have integrity, nothing else matters.
If you don’t have integrity, nothing else matters.

    Alan Simpson, in Eyewitness to Power, by David Gergen

 

 

 

 

 

Just one thing

If you can do a single thing towards a just, durable, and creative peace,
you will have fulfilled your major obligation to the world.

    Dr. Kenneth I. Brown, speech June 1948 to Morehouse College graduates 

 

 

 

 

Speaking and listening

I speak and speak,
but the listener retains only the words he is expecting.
It is not the voice that commands the story:
it is the ear.

        Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

 

 

 

 

The identity problem

A strong sense of identity
    gives man an idea he can do no wrong;
        too little accomplishes the same.

                Djuna Barnes, Nightwood 

 

 

 

 

 

All mothers, all the time

We are all meant to be mothers of God,
        for God is always needing to be born.

                 Meister Eckhart, in Christianity by Joe Jenkins

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: Rain

Woke up this morning with
a terrific urge to lie in bed all day
and read. Fought against it for a minute.

Then looked out the window at the rain.
And gave over. Put myself entirely
in the keep of this rainy morning.

Would I live my life over again?
Make the same unforgivable mistakes?
Yes, given half a chance. Yes.

        Raymond Carver 

 

 

 

 

 

Tell me a story

Anecdotes, personal stories,
reminiscences, like biblical parables,
are the medium through which faith is restored.
Stories are a form of poetry,
and give us a saving image to personally relate to.

        Peter Block, The Answer to How is Yes

 

 

 

 

Celebrate anyway

There is still no cure for the common birthday.

        John Glenn, announcing his retirement from the U. S. Senate 

 

 

 

 

 

Unbearably bearable

Life is bearable even when it's unbearable:
that is what's so terrible, that is the unbearable thing about it.

    Geoff Dyer, Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling With D.H. Lawrence

 

 

 

 

A blessing for the jet lagged

Blessed be he that invented sleep.

        Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

 

 

 

 

 

Prerequisite

It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly
        unless one has plenty of work to do.

                Jerome K. Jerome, Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow 

 

 

 

 

Lessons for Cinco de Mayo

My grandmother—God bless her soul—
a Yaqui Indian from northern Mexico,
was the greatest teacher I’d ever had!
And do you know what she taught me,
she taught me that each and every day
is un milagro [a miracle] given to us by God,
and that work, that planting corn and squash
with our two hands is holy.
She taught me all this with kindness and invitation.

        Victor Villasenor, Burro Genius: A Memoir

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: May Night

The spring is fresh and fearless
And every leaf is new,
The world is brimmed with moonlight,
The lilac brimmed with dew.

Here in the moving shadows
I catch my breath and sing--
My heart is fresh and fearless
And over-brimmed with spring.

            Sara Teasdale 

 

 

 

 

Do one thing

When I'm on stage, I'm trying to do one thing:
        bring people joy.
Just like church does. People don't go to church to find trouble,
        they go there to lose it.

                James Brown, James Brown: The Godfather of Soul

 

 

Sisters

We were a club, a society, a civilization all our own.

        "We Were Five": The Dionne Quintuplets' Story

 

 

 

 

Fame

Every man who deserves to be famous
     knows it is not worth the trouble.

            Fernando Pessoa, A Celebridade