Time:  that enchanter
who does not enchant 
(especially as one gets older).

-Lily H.

Our generation...the young generation

Our generation wanted to challenge convention.   The young generation today wants to enshrine it.

You can't know in advance the answer.

-Lily H.

"Are you a Republican?"

I keep getting asked

"Are you a Republican?"

(a reflex question a Seattleite poses about something s/he does not understand and/or is not interested in hearing)

when I beg to diverge from liberal orthodoxy in Seattle, my hometown.

We baby-boomers believed in the idea of diversity before it became ossified into liberal catechism and conformity.

Buried alive, Very alive

What we bury alive, we may think we will never hear from or see again, but we could be, on that count, quite mistaken, especially when it is ourselves we bury.
-Lily H.

Since when did being a liberal mean...

Since when did being "a liberal" obligate me to renounce and throw away a self-critical faculty to see myself, warts and all, in the mirror?
-Lily H.

What a word is truth (Lillian Hellman)

What a word is truth. Slippery, tricky, unreliable. I tried in these books to tell the truth.

Lillian Hellman

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/l/lillian_hellman.html#WgZkymD6Xbrb3OWc.99

There are no "bad" children.  

There are only 

bad parents.

Du passé faisons table rase
Foule esclave, debout ! debout !
Le monde va changer de base :
Nous ne sommes rien, soyons tout ! 

Eugène Pottier, L’Internationale, 1871

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFBBEF5F1B1F15127

The love of learning

Academia should not be about "If you do this, I will cause you pain."   Unfortunately, all too often it is.

-Lily H.

Name-calling

Would you call someone who as a youngster had been shoved ,kicked, punched, and knocked down to the ground by African-Americans and is now viscerally afraid of African-Americans racist?

-Lily H.

Today calling someone (or thing) racist is like saying someone (or thing) is awesome.

"He is racist."    "She is racist."   "They are racist."   "You are racist."   "That is racist".  I get it:  racism is like the common cold.  Calling someone racist, not racism itself, is the modern-day plague.  Its overuse cheapens the word and detracts from the instances of real racism.  

Today, calling someone (or thing) racist is like saying someone (or thing) is awesome.  

Banal, exaggerated, and usually void of meaning other than that of being simply a marker of political allegiance (+ expediency).

It is sometimes vicious, as well.


-Lily H.

乖戾

• 有些老太婆与老头子，随着年岁而变得脾气暴戾——牙齿掉得越多，越发咬得入骨。
  Some old women and men grow bitter with age; the more their teeth drop out, the more biting they get.

For beautiful eyes II

die roten lippen

une collaboration spirituelle consentie entre dix personnes supérieures éparses dans l'univers

Le roman, ainsi conçu, ainsi condensé en une page ou deux,
deviendrait une communion de pensée entre un magique écrivain et un
idéal lecteur, une collaboration spirituelle consentie entre dix
personnes supérieures éparses dans l'univers, une délectation
offerte aux délicats, accessible à eux seuls.

Knowing the difference between right and wrong does not depend on one's socioeconomic class.

Being born in poverty is no excuse for not knowing the difference between right and wrong.  I would even say that being a member of an oppressed group would ideally mean that one is even clearer than those have not been oppressed to recognize what is right and what is wrong, what benefits others and what hurts or injuries others, and to act accordingly.

Knowing the difference between right and wrong is the birthright of every human being.  No one can take it away from you.

And being born into wealth or having made a tidy bundle in the stock market--we all know--does not mean that one knows the difference between and wrong, either.

-Lily H.

For beautiful eyes

"For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone."

Audrey Hepburn

When a woman gets excited or emotional

“When a woman gets excited or emotional, she tends to raise her voice.  Now, there is nothing more unattractive than screeching.”     - Howard Hawks  quoted in
Todd McCarthy, The Grey Fox of Hollywood

Alors, dites ca aux femmes americaines, s.v.p.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/14/movies/lauren-bacalls-debut-in-to-have-and-have-not.html

Cezanne, "...tout est la."

"A mon âge, je ne peux plus déshabiller une femme... Donc je me sers de ma mémoire... et tout est là",

les grandes baigneuses (II)

En savoir plus sur http://www.lexpress.fr/informations/l-ete-cezanne-le-bon-dieu-de-la-peinture_608531.html#JxS942Zpsj8cVmd7.99

Cezanne sur Poussin ("Le Triomphe de Flore")

« Je voudrais, comme dans le Triomphe de Flore, unir les courbes des femmes à des épaules de collines… Je voudrais comme Poussin, mettre de la raison dans l’herbe et des pleurs dans le ciel. »

Paul Cezanne

Les Grandes Baigneuses

http://www.academie-francaise.fr/poussin-et-la-nature-seance-publique-annuelle-des-cinq-academies
http://www.insecula.com/oeuvre/O0000525.html
http://www.pileface.com/sollers/IMG/pdf/poussin_et_la_nature.pdf

Courage of the few against the many

I wonder how much courage it takes for an individual to belong to a pack of wolves or to a lynch-mob

(Ask the Facebook crowd).

Atticus Finch

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.

 * * * * *

The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.

* * * * *

Courage is not a man with a gun in his hand. It's knowing you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.

* * * * *

Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)

The Gospel According to John, chapter 8, verse 7

let him who is without sin cast the first stone

The Gospel According to John, chapter 8, verse 7



Those who call others racist are sometimes the most racist of all.

How do we believe (what we believe)

People will not believe what they don't want to believe, even if the evidence is front and center.

In fact, they will kill the messenger rather than reflect on whether the message might even be partly true.

-anonymous

Whosoever saves one life

“Whoever saves one life, saves the world 

entire.”

― Thomas Keneally, Schindler's List

I am thinking of animal life here.

How precious it is.

Telling the truth

I can't tell the truth if you're going beat the shit out of me if I do.

-Anonymous

You wouldn't know.

You wouldn't know.

(Lily H., not Jerome Kern)

dessein de l'interieur d'une coupe ou est representee Cassandre 440 B.C.E. (Louvre)

You wouldn't know that African-Americans were so heroic if you spent any time waiting for a bus in Seattle on 3rd Avenue between Pike and Pine.

-Lily H.

Quel destin attend-t-on?

Le 23 mai 1498, Jérôme Savonarole est pendu et brûlé à Florence, sur la place de la Seigneurie.

I never thought of myself as a "cultured" person until...

Growing up in the counter-culture 1960s, where academic discipline at many colleges and universities became lax,
I never thought of myself as a particularly cultured person.

But I woke up in the 21st century, looked around and listened to the yammering that passed for conversation,
and then I realized it was all relative.

Schubert was not the name of an ice cream or gelato:  this much I knew.


-Lily H.

Male cats howl continually if they are not

It wasn't just  Maggie, it was Brick, too.


As I understand, male cats howl continually if not spayed--and thus can be a major pain in the ass.

In our society, machismo and violence of all kinds (not just gun violence) is endemic.

We, gay or straight, would do well to learn from our feline brethren.

-Lily H.

If you can...you can survive.

If you can tell the truth, you can survive.

It helps if someone is listening.

Look into the eyes of animals:  they do not lie.  For human beings, though, it takes effort.

-Lily H.

If we're killing each other

If we'z killin' each other, that's the fault of the police, they not protectin' us at all, jus lettin' us die like flies, ain't fair.

-Anonymous

Whoever you are, whatever it is you are doing is all right.

*

Whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.   

 -Blanche dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire

(to Missie Jo):

Whatever it is that you are doing, it is all right.    

-Lily H.

*  http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/theatre/2009/12/14/091214crth_theatre_lahr

Feelings of racial superiority

Feelings of superiority based on race, history, physical stature, or moral righteousness, 
undermine 

the cause of racial equality in this country.

-Lily H.




* * * * *



The fact that I prefer A to B does not mean necessarily that A is better than B.   I just like A more than B.  Even if I really don't like B at all.
-Ibid.

Le racisme: une epithete qu'on doit parfois prendre a la legere

Les gens qui disent que quelqu'un d'autre est raciste sont souvent  plus racistes que celui-la.

-Lily H.

...Elle a la mer, nous au tombeau....

Lorsque au soleil couchant, les rivieres sont roses, 

Et qu'un tiede frisson court sur les champs de ble, 

Un conseil d'etre heureux semble sortir des choses 

Et monter vers le coeur trouble. 

Un conseil de gouter le charme d'etre au monde 

Cependant qu'on est jeune et que le soir est beau 

Car nous nous en allons, 

Comme s'en va cette onde: 

Elle a la mer, 

Nous au tombeau

paroles:   Paul Bourget            musique:  Claude Debussy (ca. 1883)

Renee Fleming, soprano http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzNASDPXbMw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Rnjl-s8dPs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRCk49vcjjY