Straight No Chaser.............................Twelve Days of Christmas
John Denver and the Muppets.............Twelve Days of Christmas
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Illusions..........................
"We live by our imaginations, by our admirations, by our
sentiments. The child walks amid heaps of illusions, which
he does not like to have disturbed."
"Great is the paint; nay, God is the painter; and we rightly
accuse the critic who destroys too many illusions. Society
does not love its unmaskers."
"Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be
understood. All is riddle, and the key to a riddle is
another riddle."
"In this kingdom of illusions we grope eagerly for stays and
foundations. There is none but a strict and faithful dealing
at home, and a severe barring out of all duplicity or
illusion there. Whatever games are played with us, we must
play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy with
the last honesty and truth."
"There is no chance, and no anarchy, in the universe. All
is system and gradation."
-All quotes excerpted from Ralph Waldo Emerson's
essay, Illusions.
OK, Coach..................
"Coaches have to watch for what they don't want to
see and listen to what they don't want to hear."
"The fewer rules a coach has, the fewer there are for
a player to break."
-John Madden
About Reading................
"It's not macho to read a book? Nonsense. Reading is a
stouthearted activity, disporting courage, keenness, stick-
to-it-ness. It is also, in my experience, one of the most
thrilling and enduring delights of life, equal to a home run,
a slam dunk, or breaking the four-minute mile."
-Irving Stone
..don't seem to hear a word I say........
Peter & Gordon.....................................I Go To Pieces
Friday, December 2, 2011
Still not a battle between bands.......
August Burns Red.....................................Carol of the Bells
Mannheim Steamroller.................................Carol of the Bells
Mannheim Steamroller.................................Carol of the Bells
Beauty............
"From a great heart secret magnetisms flow incessantly
to draw great events."
"Knowledge of men, knowledge of manners, the power of
form, and our sensibility to personal influence, never go
out of fashion. These are facts of a science which we study
without book, whose teachers and subjects are always
near us."
"The lesson taught by the study of Greek and of Gothic
art, of antique and of Pre-Raphaelite painting, was worth
all the research, - namely, that all beauty must be organic;
that outside embellishment is deformity."
"We love any forms, however ugly, from which great
qualities shine. If command, eloquence, art, or invention,
exist in the most deformed person, all the accidents that
usually displease, please, and raise esteem and wonder
higher."
-all quotes are excerpted from Ralph Waldo Emerson's
essay, Beauty.
OK, Coach.........................
"A good coach will make his players see what they can be
rather than what they are."
"I am inspired by the pure goodness of the human spirit...."
"Men - adversity has the propensity of eliciting talents that
under more prosperous circumstances would have
remained dormant."
-Ara Parseghian
Applies to us people just as well..........
Kevin Kelly is setting forth some rules. To wit:
"If you are in doubt about what technology to purchase, get the stuff that will connect the most widely, the most often, and in the most ways. Avoid anything that resembles an island, no matter how well endowed that island is."
"If you are in doubt about what technology to purchase, get the stuff that will connect the most widely, the most often, and in the most ways. Avoid anything that resembles an island, no matter how well endowed that island is."
About that plastic...............
"Credit cards are antithetical to well-managed finances,"
was Roy's second pronouncement. "We all know that if we
don't pay off our debt the month it is incurred, it's subject
to exorbitant rates of interest.............."
"As long as you pay your cards off promptly, they're
a pretty good deal, though, right? One month interest-free
plus the convenience." Credit-Card Cathy desperately
wanted Roy's approval.
She was in for a disappointment. "Actually, no. For
most people, they are not a good deal. The convenience
that you view as an attribute can combine with human
nature to form a destructive force, especially in the hands
of someone who loves to shop. How many times have you
bought something with your credit card that you wouldn't
have bought if you'd had to pay cash?
-David Chilton, The Wealthy Barber
This one has been around for a while......
.............................but bears repeating.
50 Things Every 18 Year Old (read: every adult) Should Know.
Full list is here. A smattering of samples here:
3) Compound interest is your friend. Saving even a relatively small percentage of your income each year, starting at 18, can leave you in much better shape by the time you're ready to retire.
12) Ideally, you should choose something you love to do so much that you'd do it for free and find a way to make it into a career.
26) When men have a problem and they tell you about it, they want to know how to fix it. When women have a problem and they tell you about it, they just want you to listen.
30) When you're 18, you worry about what everybody is thinking of you; when you're 40, you don't give a darn what anybody thinks of you; when you're 60, you realize nobody's been thinking about you at all.
39) Nobody owes you a living.
40) You are not a victim.
46) Ironically, successful people tend to fail a lot more than unsuccessful people. They also tend to ask a lot more questions.
48) You beat 50% of the people by just showing up. You beat another 40% by working hard. The last 10% is a dogfight in the free enterprise system.
50) When trying to decide between two closely matched alternatives, always have a bias towards action. In the long run, it'll lead to your having a lot more experience, great stories, and a richer, fuller life.
Thanks Maggies'
50 Things Every 18 Year Old (read: every adult) Should Know.
Full list is here. A smattering of samples here:
3) Compound interest is your friend. Saving even a relatively small percentage of your income each year, starting at 18, can leave you in much better shape by the time you're ready to retire.
12) Ideally, you should choose something you love to do so much that you'd do it for free and find a way to make it into a career.
26) When men have a problem and they tell you about it, they want to know how to fix it. When women have a problem and they tell you about it, they just want you to listen.
30) When you're 18, you worry about what everybody is thinking of you; when you're 40, you don't give a darn what anybody thinks of you; when you're 60, you realize nobody's been thinking about you at all.
39) Nobody owes you a living.
40) You are not a victim.
46) Ironically, successful people tend to fail a lot more than unsuccessful people. They also tend to ask a lot more questions.
48) You beat 50% of the people by just showing up. You beat another 40% by working hard. The last 10% is a dogfight in the free enterprise system.
50) When trying to decide between two closely matched alternatives, always have a bias towards action. In the long run, it'll lead to your having a lot more experience, great stories, and a richer, fuller life.
Thanks Maggies'
Early electric guitar fun...........................
The Ventures....................................................Apache
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Can't hardly call it a battle of the bands....
Greg Lake..............................I Believe in Father Christmas
U2.....................................I Believe in Father Christmas
U2.....................................I Believe in Father Christmas
Kurt, who notices more than most.....
..gets reminded of the importance of remembering to notice,
as well as the sheer joy to be found in wondering:
"He was like a little kid but he made me notice things I had
stopped noticing. He made me look around and wonder."
Get the full story at Cultural Offering.
as well as the sheer joy to be found in wondering:
"He was like a little kid but he made me notice things I had
stopped noticing. He made me look around and wonder."
Get the full story at Cultural Offering.
Wealth...................
"Society is barbarous, until every industrious man can get his
living without dishonest customs.
"Every man is a consumer, and ought to be a producer.
He fails to make his place good in the world, unless he not
only pays his debt, but also adds something to the common
wealth. Nor can he do justice to his genius, without making
some larger demand on the world than a bare subsistence.
He is by constitution expensive, and needs to be rich."
".....good luck is another name for tenacity of purpose."
"Wealth brings its own checks and balances. The basis of
political economy is non-interference. The only safe rule is
found in the self-adjusting meter of demand and supply. Do
not legislate. Meddle, and you snap the sinews with your
sumptuary laws. Give no bounties: make equal laws:
secure life and property, and you need not give alms. Open
the doors of opportunity to talent and virtue, and they will
do themselves justice, and property will not be in bad hands.
In a free and just commonwealth, property rushes from the
idle and imbecile, to the industrious, brave and persevering."
"The level of the sea is not more surely kept, than is the
equilibrium of value in society, by the demand and supply:
artifice or legislation punishes itself, by reactions, gluts,
and bankruptcies.
"Nature arms each man with some faculty which enables him
to do easily some feat impossible to any other, and thus
makes him necessary to society."
"I think we are entitled to draw a straight line, and say, that
society can never prosper, but must always be bankrupt,
until every man does that which he was created to do."
-all quotes excerpted from Ralph Waldo Emerson's
essay, Wealth
On chasing security..........
"You have to understand that there are no guarantees in this
life, there is no absolute security, and there is usually no
simple path to financial success. It's going to take some
effort. For the mind to chase after security is ludicrous. It
will never get it, and the irritation of constantly seeking
security destroys what stability there is.
"It is simpler, therefore, to agree that one doesn't need
security. One doesn't even need a system that favors one.
All that is needed is what one already has, which is
creativity and energy."
-Stuart Wilde, The Trick to Money is Having Some!
It's alright....................
Dave Clark 5..........................................Anyway You Want It
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
OK, Coach...................
“Some people are born on third base and go through life
thinking they hit a triple.”
“It was like a heart transplant. We tried to implant college
in him but his head rejected it.”
"The key to his success? He's just faster than the guys
who are chasing him.”
-Barry Switzer
Behavior..............
"Strong will and keen perception overpower old manners,
and create new; and the thought of the present moment
has a greater value than all the past."
"There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, or behavior,
like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us."
"An old man who added elevating culture to a large
experience of life, said to me, 'When you come into the
room, I think I will study how to make humanity
beautiful to you.'"
"The soul which animates Nature is not less significantly
published in the figure, movement, and gesture of animated
bodies, than in its last vehicle of articulate speech. This
silent and subtle language is Manners; not what, but how,
Life expresses."
-All quotes excerpted from Ralph Waldo Emerson's
essay, Behavior.
WRM and the glory of working (all your life)......
Walter Russell Mead notices that us baby boomers haven't been
saving enough for retirement.............................
"But the essence of maturity is to balance future needs against present wants and take appropriate actions; millions of Americans haven’t done this, and they are now looking at the results."
He then proceeds to suggest that non-retirement may not be
such a bad thing after all..........................
"Work is not a horrible chore one endures just to pay the bills, it is one of the core things that constitute a healthy, active, and fulfilling human life. The fact that older people can continue to work into their seventies and eighties should be celebrated — greater engagement with the world in your old age is a positive thing."
The full post from the always interesting Via Media blog is here.
On wealth..............
"One day Mr. Shoaf said, 'Jim if you want to be wealthy
and happy, learn this lesson well: Learn to work harder on
yourself than you do on your job.'
"Since that time I've been working on my personal
development. And I must admit that this has been the most
challenging assignment of all. This business of personal
development lasts a lifetime."
Jim Rohn, Seven Strategies for Wealth and Happiness
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
One way to boost consumer confidence.....
Of course, by the time you read this, the price will probably
have been raised by thirty cents a gallon. It's that old giveth
and taketh away thing they seem to do regularly. Oh well, it
was fun today.
OK, Coach...........................
"Humanity is the keystone that holds nations and men together. When that collapses, the whole structure crumbles. This is as true of baseball teams as any other pursuit in life."
"I guess more players lick themselves that are ever licked by an opposing team. The first thing any man has to know is how to handle himself."
"You can't win them all."
"You're born with two strikes against you, so don't take a third one on your own."
-Connie Mack, aka, Cornelius McGillicuddy, Sr.
Now I'm no longer alone.......................
The Marcels.................................................Blue Moon
Monday, November 28, 2011
OK, Coach........................
"When we lost, I couldn't sleep at night. When we win,
I can't sleep at night. But when you win, you wake up
feeling better."
-Joe Torre
Poetry for a Monday...............
I dream of a quiet man
who explains nothing and defends
nothing, but only knows
where the rarest wildflowers
are blooming, and who goes,
and finds that he is smiling
not by his own will.
-Sabbaths 1999: II
Wendell Berry
Why all the embarrassment
about being happy?
Sometimes I'm as happy
as a sleeping dog,
and for the same reasons,
and for others.
-Why
Wendell Berry
In the dark of the moon, in flying snow, in the dead of winter,
war spreading, families dying, the world in danger,
I walk the rocky hillside, sowing clover.
-February 2, 1968
Wendell Berry
who explains nothing and defends
nothing, but only knows
where the rarest wildflowers
are blooming, and who goes,
and finds that he is smiling
not by his own will.
-Sabbaths 1999: II
Wendell Berry
Why all the embarrassment
about being happy?
Sometimes I'm as happy
as a sleeping dog,
and for the same reasons,
and for others.
-Why
Wendell Berry
In the dark of the moon, in flying snow, in the dead of winter,
war spreading, families dying, the world in danger,
I walk the rocky hillside, sowing clover.
-February 2, 1968
Wendell Berry
On wealth.............
"Wealth, like a tree, grows from a tiny seed. The first copper
you save is the seed from which your tree of wealth shall
grow. The sooner you plant that seed the sooner shall the
tree grow. And the more faithfully you nourish and water
that tree with consistent savings, the sooner may you bask in
contentment beneath its shade."
-George S. Clason, The Richest Man in Babylon
I can't help but love you so..................
Spencer Davis Group..........................................I'm a Man
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Battle of the Bands.........................
This one is for Jetboy....................and maybe for Skip
Hank Shizzo and Sonny Landreth..............................Stagger Lee
Wilson Pickett..............................................Stagger Lee
Taj Mahal...................................................Stagger Lee
The McCoys..................................................Stagger Lee
And the winner is.........................
Hank Shizzo and Sonny Landreth..............................Stagger Lee
Wilson Pickett..............................................Stagger Lee
Taj Mahal...................................................Stagger Lee
The McCoys..................................................Stagger Lee
And the winner is.........................
Sunday's Verse
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne.
32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.
35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,
36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?
38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?
39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,
43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Mathew 24:31-46
The Holy Bible, New International Version
32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.
35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,
36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?
38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?
39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,
43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Mathew 24:31-46
The Holy Bible, New International Version
It's all too beautiful............................................., or beware the early psychedelia
The Small Faces.........................................Itchycoo Park
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