Self-Serving Sentiment

Always Marry An April Girl
by Ogden Nash

Praise the spells and bless the charms,
I found April in my arms.
April golden, April cloudy,
Gracious, cruel, tender, rowdy;
April soft in flowered languor,
April cold with sudden anger,
Ever changing, ever true -- I love April, I love you.

Thank you, Mr. Nash, from all the April girls.

Little Match Girl

Grace
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

How much, preventing God! how much I owe
To the defenses thou hast round me set:
Example, custom, fear, occasional slow,
These scorned bondmen were my parapet.
I dare not peep over this parapet
To gauge with glance the roaring gulf below,
The depths of sin to which I had descended,
Had not these me against myself defended.

As Filthy Rags

The Exposed Nest
by Robert Frost

You were forever finding some new play.
So when I saw you down on hands and knees
In the meadow, busy with the new-cut hay,
Trying, I thought, to set it up on end,
I went to show you how to make it stay,
If that was your idea, against the breeze,
And, if you asked me, even help pretend
To make it root again and grow afresh.
But 'twas no make-believe with you today,
Nor was the grass itself your real concern,
Though I found your hand full of wilted fern,
Steel-bright June-grass, and blackening heads of clovers.
'Twas a nest full of young birds on the ground
The cutter-bar had just gone champing over
(Miraculously without tasking flesh)
And left defenseless to the heat and light.
You wanted to restore them to their right
Of something interposed between their sight
And too much world at once--could means be found.
The way the nest-full every time we stirred
Stood up to us as to a mother-bird
Whose coming home has been too long deferred,
Made me ask would the mother-bird return
And care for them in such a change of scene
And might our meddling make her more afraid.
That was a thing we could not wait to learn.
We saw the risk we took in doing good,
But dared not spare to do the best we could
Though harm should come of it; so built the screen
You had begun, and gave them back their shade.
All this to prove we cared. Why is there then
No more to tell? We turned to other things.
I haven't any memory--have you?--
Of ever coming to the place again
To see if the birds lived the first night through,
And so at last to learn to use their wings.

painting Caspar David Friedrich, 1774-1840

German Romanticism

Excellent bio at www.Artchive.com

"Protestantism, conveyed by the vehicle of the visual arts, tended to see Nature more as pagan Mother than God's Work, too close to pantheism for comfort (or a free ride). Friedrich presents an exception. His anti-Classical emphasis upon experience, its reception and communication, stressed the personal, the "I in the eye," the mind, the heart, and the hand. Heinrich von Kleist wrote how a Friedrich landscape, one "with nothing but a frame as foreground," made him feel as if his "eyelids had been cut away." So radical a perception of the image shows Friedrich's art as a shocking breakthrough, bordering upon an expressionistic confrontation, facing infinity. "

Something To Think About

Subtle, eh?

More in-your-face antiwar propoganda at: http://www.cafepress.com/cp/search/search.aspx?cfpt=&q=suv+war&cfpt2=%3A&copt=&source=searchBox

Also, if you ever have the chance, break open the piggy bank and go see the play Celebrity Row by Itamar Moses. It will batter your philosophies and ideologies on every level. In a good way. A very good way. Make time for a stiff drink afterwards:

PCPA Description
Fact: The most secure prison in America is ADX-Florence, a.k.a. Colorado Supermax, a.k.a. the Alcatraz of the Rockies. It once held The Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, Latin Kings gang leader Luis Felipe and World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yusef, all on the same floor, at the same time.
Fiction: In this brilliant, hilarious and free ranging epic, Itamar Moses {Outrage} imagines what might have transpired in the one hour a day that these prisoners were allowed access to each other. As seen through the eyes of the prison educator, Maze Carroll, these conversations morph into a humorous and excoriating examination of the freedoms we trade away for "security." ~ http://www.pcpa.com/events/event.php?event=2346

http://www.playscripts.com/author.php3?authorid=454

Conversations on Being Worthwhile

When I Consider How My Light Is Spent

When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."

John Milton

Meat for Thought

I am not particularly fond of the charred and juicy food group, so maybe I react differently than others would, but...do these pictures really make you hungry? They make me nervous--

This one especially; it disturbs me that her nails are painted the same shade as raw flesh:

The bologna slogan is somewhat endearing: Round, Ready, Right. Indeed.

Deluge yourself with more overzealous advertising at http://www.plan59.com/. Joy!

Trapper Creek Minutia

Went on a hike last Sunday in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest near Carson, WA--http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/. The forest was beautiful on the large scale, of course. But once I started taking pictures of these amazing mushrooms, I started noticing the smaller plant life. Worlds within worlds.

These ferns were tiny and carpeted the forest floor. I didn't "see" them until we were nose-to-nose, as I tried to steady the camera on the underside of my fungi.

I didn't like what the flash did to this shot at first, but then I noticed how it highlighted the tiny lichens growing on the log.

Brilliant!

Alberta Street

It was described with some justice as an artistic colony, though it never in any definable way produced any art. But although its pretensions to be an intellectual centre were a little vague, its pretensions to be a pleasant place were quite indisputable….The place was not only pleasant, but perfect, if once he could regard it not as a deception but rather as a dream. Even if the people were not “artists,” the whole was nevertheless artistic. That young man with the long, auburn hair and the impudent face—that young man was not really a poet; but surely he was a poem. That old gentleman with the wild, white beard and the wild, white hat—that venerable humbug was not really a philosopher; but at least he was the cause of philosophy in others….Thus, and thus only, the whole place had properly to be regarded; it had to be considered not so much as a workshop for artists, but as a frail but finished work of art. A man who stepped into its social atmosphere felt as if he had stepped into a written comedy.

~ The Man Who Was Thursday, GK Chesterton

Image from http://www.pbase.com/adriainpdx/last_thursday

Sewing Project

Spring days are rainy days here in Portland. Inside, I'm attempting clothes inspired by the idea of sun. The skirt is from a vintage Chanel-inspired suit pattern my grama gave me. She had loads of patterns up in her attic and I came away with some great designs to play around with.

Even better, this winter (on a sunny day) I stumbled into an estate sale and found piles of fabrics from the 40's through the 60's, along with zippers, lining material and everything else the dearly departed used to make clothing for friends and family. I am putting them to good use. I hope she is glad her unfinished projects are taking on new life.