Calling things by their names

Fuast:

Which of us dares to call things by their names?
Those few who had some knowledge of the truth, 
Whose full heart’s rashness drove them to disclose 
Their passions and their vision to the mob, all those 
Died nailed to crosses or consigned to the flames.


Left out in the Rain:

What history fails to mention is

Most everybody lived their lives
With friends and children, played it cool,
Left truth & beauty to the guys
Who tricked for bigshots, and were fools

Christmas Tree, S&I

Q: Do you know what S+I represents in Spanish?
A: SI

compose a symphony

Just because you’ve been bumped up to first chair in the orchestra doesn’t mean you can compose a symphony.

Red

Layered

Layered like an egg
yolk, white, shell
Core, mantle, crust
Layered like the atmosphere
tropo, strato, thermo, exosphere
Layered like the internet
link, mac, network, transport, application
Layered like her hairdo
short, long, medium, bright
Layered like a lasagna

asiago, zucchini, oregano

Layered like a tiramisu
mascarpone, cream, coca powder
Layered like an ordinary cake
raspberry, whipped cream, mixed berries
Layered like a salad
lettuce, tomato, peas, chopped bacons
Layered like a fruit smoothie
strawberry, banana, mango
pretty tasty
Layered liked a pile of shit
of lizards, birds, dogs, and herds
Layered is life, layered!

Objectivism

Rand called her philosophy "Objectivism", describing its essence as "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."

COLLECTING FIREFLIES

I’m afraid

I don’t understand

the death part of life

although at my age

you might think I might,

and not necessarily

the last death-part

but the everyday bits of it

that constantly intrude

The only thing I can think

to make sense of it

is that its shadow

over each tenderness

makes each tenderness

more rich and poignant,

as if tenderness were

the only point of light

in this camera obscura,

which is the room

in which we spend lives

netting such points

like children

in a dark field in summer

collecting fireflies

by Jim Culleny

9/2/15

Hopscotch

"Would I find La Maga? Most of the time it was just a case of my putting in an appearance, going along the Rue de Seine to the arch leading into the Quai de Conti, and I would see her slender form against the olive-ashen light which floats along the river as she crossed back and forth on the Pont des Arts, or leaned over the iron rail looking at the water. It was quite natural for me to climb the steps to the bridge, go into its narrowness and over to where La Maga stood. She would smile and show no surprise, convinced as she was, the same as I, that casual meetings are apt to be just the opposite, and that people who make dates are the same kind who need lines on their writing paper, or who always squeeze up from the bottom on a tube of toothpaste." 

Julio Cortazar

Parking Garages and Illusion of Choice

Parking garage are an ironic parody of an immigrant's life. In there circuitous paths, leading from their lowest underground levels to their top floors, you frequently find yourself approaching a dead-end, a wall, just to realize all you need is to gently steer the wheel into a right turn, or a left turn!
Sometimes you go round-and-around and finally decide to park, and after a few minutes of moving back and forth you realize you barely fit in, and maybe, just maybe, you're better off searching somewhere else for spot ... you get out knowing that you may not find a better spot, but you do it anyways, since the act of 'searching' gives you a temporary relief; that is, you learn that the illusion of choice is more rewarding than anything real life can offer you!

On Life

Life may be compared to a piece of embroidery, of which, during the first half of his time, a man gets a sight of the right side, and during the second half, of the wrong. The wrong side is not so pretty as the right, but it is more instructive; it shows the way in which the threads have been worked together. -- Schopenhauer

Do I contradict myself?

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.

Walt Whitman

These are the words

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,

then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,

flare up like a flame!

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.

Just keep going. No feeling is final.

Go to the limits of your longing.  — From Rilke’s Book of Hours

Where is my Strawburry

10 icecreams & u get the tea
u may go back and your icecream is no longer there.

I want to be desired not loved ... monty python

Think Deeply

Time, space, human factor

with time situations, things, people change

rules and forces change with space

humans change facts to fit their purpose
People have basic needs: need for shelter, feeling secure, health insurance etc
People can firm cliques when u least expect it

stories

Emory cap-driver with a diabetic child, a cat who saved the son, educational campaign, both children profs

Emory prof who attended my talk, expert in molecular mechanism of sepsis, lost a wife in ICU to sepsis

jacuzzi & drinks or water? It's beautiful on the roof. Bad night, my grandma just pass away.

Talent

SARAH GREEN: ... before we move on, have a clarifying questions. When you’re talking about the talent, in this case, being a very small percentage and extracting a high rate of return, it sounds like you’re not talking about creative talent in the terms of like a choreographer or an advertising executive or even a CEO. It sounds like you’re actually really talking about a specific kind of financial manager. Is that a fair assumption to make?

ROGER MARTIN: No, no, no. It’s a good question, Sarah. No. I would say that choreographer is in the realm of the talent world. There’s, of course, all sorts of talent and all kinds of levels of talent.

I think what’s most conspicuous these days is the earnings power of financial management talent, hedge fund managers being the most obvious example. And they’re the group that, if you look in the Forbes 400 list of the 400 richest Americans, the biggest growth category by far is hedge fund managers, one category. They’ve gone from a tiny participation in that list in 2000 to being second highest to high tech, high tech entrepreneurs like Zuckerberg or Gates or Ellison.

So they’re the most conspicuous version, but in many of these fields– so in choreography, there isn’t as much money in general. There isn’t as much capital to extract value from. You see, that’s talent’s game. What talent’s game is in the modern world is attach yourself to pools of capital, use those pools of capital, and try and make sure capital gets the least possible and you get the most possible.

"A writer—and I believe, generally all persons—must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art."

FaceTime and FaceOff

"Too much, too little, or not enough, too fat, too thin, or nobody" - The Crunch, Charles Bukowski

We checked out each other on the FaceTime. A few minutes of exchanging greetings and chitchats. A few attempts to get to know the 'other' person; a lost art among the post-social media socialized 'selves'. What stuck out were a few personal narratives, stories of how we became who 'we' are. An attempt to make connections among ones lifetime events, well some events, others to be left alone within the "tome of memory, its random blank pages".

We also left alone the context that we carried with ourselves, the 'class', and with that our perception of what is 'normal' or 'abnormal'. We both carried our own walls, walls to insulate us from the 'others' of certain types. To penetrate these walls, simply meant to be a romantic, while the forces of 'class' face off.

diamond-like brilliance

Often optimistic, sometimes pessimistic, then romantic and always paradoxical! 
Ultimately, it is my genius that radiates through with a diamond-like brilliance!

"Her neck, her bosom open, the snowstorm in her face! But the storms from north cannot harm the Russian rose. Oh how a searing kiss burns through the frost!"

Radcliffe

I'm yet to find my grandfather's voice. However, being here at Radcliffe helped me to find my own voice, voice of a generation that are still condemned to silence.

Giorgio de Chirico 1913

The Uncertainty of the Poet