wednesday wisdom: commencement speech wisdom

National AIDS Memorial Grove at Golden Gate Park. San Francisco.

Two paths diverge in a wood, and we get to take them both.

- Nora Ephron’s address to Wellesley College’s Class of 1996, referring to the lives that women get to lead

wednesday wisdom: better than bullshit

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wednesday wisdom: this book is just pure wisdom

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RESISTANCE IS INSIDIOUS

Resistance will tell you anything to keep you from doing your work. It will perjure, fabricate, falsify; seduce, bully, cajole. Resistance is protean. It will assume any form, if that’s what it takes you deceive you. It will reason with you like a lawyer or jam a nine-millimeter in your face like a stickup man. Resistance has no conscience. It will pledge anything to get a deal, then double-cross you as soon as your back is turned. If you take Resistance at its word, you deserve everything you get. Resistance is always lying and always full of shit.

- Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

wednesday wisdom: jabberwocky

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April is National Poetry Month, and since we’re all about the words around here, each Wednesday Wisdom will be a celebration of poetry, the forgotten art. I have a very distinct association of “Jabberwocky” to my fifth grade class at Buckingham Elementary: I had to memorize the whole thing, and was also responsible for interpreting and illustrating a Jubjub bird. Made famous in Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, this is my first introduction into glorious nonsense, and is forever etched into my brain.

Jabberwocky
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought –
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’
He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

- Lewis Carroll, 1871

wednesday wisdom: poem in your pocket day

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April is National Poetry Month. Tomorrow (April 18) is National Poem In Your Pocket Day. Celebrating is easy: pick your favorite poem, put it in your pocket. Share it with your friends, family, co-workers, and fellow wordsmiths throughout the day. Tweet your #pocketpoem. Download a pocket poem  for you and your kidlets. I’m going with this one by Claude McKay, because it reminds me that us New Yorkers are a hodgepodge of displaced peoples from the world over, seeking familiarity, comfort, a good piece of fruit. Will you celebrate with me?

The Tropics of New York
Bananas ripe and green, and ginger root
Cocoa in pods and alligator pears,
And tangerines and mangoes and grape fruit,
Fit for the highest prize at parish fairs,

Sat in the window, bringing memories
of fruit-trees laden by low-singing rills,
And dewy dawns, and mystical skies
In benediction over nun-like hills.

My eyes grow dim, and I could no more gaze;
A wave of longing through my body swept,
And, hungry for the old, familiar ways
I turned aside and bowed my head and wept.

- Claude McKay, Jamaican-American writer

wednesday wisdom: the iron road

giovanni pascoli.

April is National Poetry Month, and since we’re all about the words around here, each Wednesday Wisdom will be a celebration of poetry, the forgotten art. Giovanni Pascoli is an Italian poet, and one whose verses I scratched onto notecards and taped to my bathroom mirror: “Il sogno è l’infinita ombra del Vero” (The dream is the infinite shadow of Truth).

The Iron Road

Between embankments, where the cattle graze
in peace, the railroad stretches out in a straight,
dark brown line that glimmers from afar;

in the pearl sky, the telegraph poles create
another line in their aerial plot beside
the tracks, and in shrinking order, disappear.

What sort of rumbling moans and roaring howls
crescendo, then vanish, like a women’s wail?
An immense, resounding harp, from time to time,
these metal lines ring out across the wind.

- Giovanni Pascoli, translated from the Italian by Lawrence Venuti

wednesday wisdom: charles simic

charles simic.

April is National Poetry Month, and since we’re all about the words around here, each Wednesday Wisdom will be a celebration of poetry, the forgotten art. Our first poem is by Charles Simic, one of my favorite poets ever, a Serbian-American who writes shadowy, honest verses like “Dear Friedrich, the world’s still false, cruel and beautiful” and who wrote the poem below.

Against Winter

The truth is dark under your eyelids.
What are you going to do about it?
The birds are silent; there’s no one to ask.
All day long you’ll squint at the gray sky.
When the wind blows you’ll shiver like straw.

A meek little lamb you grew your wool
Till they came after you with huge shears.
Flies hovered over open mouth,
Then they, too, flew off like the leaves,
The bare branches reached after them in vain.

Winter coming. Like the last heroic soldier
Of a defeated army, you’ll stay at your post,
Head bared to the first snow flake.
Till a neighbor comes to yell at you,
You’re crazier than the weather, Charlie.

- Charles Simic

wednesday wisdom: the rising

via pinterest.

One day
your soul will call to you
with a holy rage.
“Rise up!” it will say …
“Stand up inside your own skin.”
Unmask your unlived life …
feast on your animal heart.
Unfasten your fist …
let loose the medicine
in your own hand.
Show me the lines …
I will show you the spoor
of the ancestors.
Show me the creases …
I will show you
the way to water.
Show me the folds …
I will show you the furrows
for your healing.
“Look!” it will say …
the line of life has four paths –
one with a mirror
one with a mask,
one with a fist,
one with a heart.
One day,
your soul will call to you
with a holy rage.

-Ian McCallum, English guitarist & poet

wednesday wisdom: old wisdom & new wisdom

wednesday wisdom: a hard battle

via pinterest.

*SARA LITTLE, CUB REPORTER, FOOTNOTE: Who said this? Was it Plato? Philo of Alexandria? John Watson? It’s frequently attributed to Plato (at least on Pinterest), so I’m tempted to credit the great Greek. But the awesome blog Quote Investigator says otherwise. Fellow word-slingers and amateur etymologists, add to your blog rolls now.

wednesday wisdom: innocence + magic

via Elyse C’s Flickr.

Only things worth living for
Are innocence and magic
Hey babe.
- British Songwriter David Gray, “Silver Lining”

wednesday wisdom: the light will appear

nighttime in japan. via pinterest.

While we are in a dark night of the soul experience, hold steady knowing the light will appear once again.
- Madisyn Taylor, via DailyOM

wednesday wisdom: robert burns

January 25th is Burns Night, in which Scotland and Scotland lovers everywhere celebrate their Favourite Son,  the Ploughman Poet, the Robden of Solway Firth, the Bard of Ayrshire: Robert Burns. He wrote “Auld Lang Syne,” that little ditty we mumble along to on New Years, the lyrics of which we’re not quite sure of. You might also recognize this one.

A Red, Red Rose
O my Luve’s like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve’s like the melodie
That’s sweetly play’d in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I:
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry:

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun:
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee well, my only Luve
And fare thee well, a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho’ it were ten thousand mile.

- Robert Burns, 1759-1796

wednesday wisdom: carver

Ray Carver by Ruth Guilly, based on a photo by Bob Adelman

You’ve got to work with your mistakes until they look intended.
- American writer Raymond Carver, “Cathedral“

wednesday wisdom: it’s going to be your year

couldn’t hurt.

Do you like mantras? Especially prettily designed ones from Pinterest? You’re not alone. BlissTree has assembled 33 of them here. Go check it out. Find a resolution if you haven’t already. Happy Wednesday.