James Bond

His martini recipe: Three measures of Gordons gin, one of vodka, a half measure of Kina Lillet, shake (not stir) with ice until ice-cold, strain into a chilled deep champagne goblet, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel. He wanted only one drink before dinner, but he wanted a good one.
(courtesy of Ian Fleming)

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"It is doubtless a vice to turn one's eyes inward too much, but I am my own comedy and tragedy".

Christopher Morley

"There are three ingredients in the good life: learning, earning, and yearning".

Cosmic Void

A hole in the universe - no stars, dust, gas, mysterious dark matter or energy, lacking in the radiation microwave background reminant of the Big Bang - an area nearly a billion light years wide - discovered by Astronomer Lawrence Rudnick of the University of Minnesota. What is the significance of this discovery? - who knows? - we don't know how to deal with "nothing".

Lee Segall

"It is possible to own too much. A man with one watch knows what time it is; a man with two watches is never quite sure".

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

This prolific composer's music straddled two eras: the classical of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, and the romantic of Mendelsson and Schumann. Sadly, his symphonies, sonatas, chamber works, and songs, were not published until after his untimely death at the age of thirty one. His musical settings of Goethe, Fredrich Schiller, and Heinrich poems have endured for almost two hundred years.

Pushkin (1799-1837)

"The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten-thousand truths."

How fitting and so appropriate is the right word, at the right place, at the right time.

Alexander Pushkin

The French-loving Russians thought their language was too barbaric for literature, but Pushkin proved that Russian writers could create beauty without using another country's voice. He wrote romantic poems, short stories, essays, and a novel "Eugene Oregin". Englishscholar A. D. P. Briggs wrote: "Anyone who takes the trouble to learn Russian in order to read Pushkin will never regret it".

Joseph Conrad

"No man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self-knowledge".

Ezra Pound (1885-1972)

Wordsmith and gadfly of American letters. Few writers in history have so dominated the literary scene as an American in Europe, he promoted T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, Robert Frost, and profoundly influenced William Butler Yeats and Earnest Hemingway. Unfortunatly, he made Jew-baiting, pro-Fascist radio broadcasts from Italy in World War II and spent twelve years in a mental hospital.

A Vignette

We were headed for Cedar Point. I was at the helm of our 18ft outboard, with daughters aboard; Ruthie was with friends on a larger inboard. With little warning, winds struck. Instantly the water turned inky black as ripples destroyed reflection. The ripples became giant waves for which Lake Erie is famous. Further progress was impossible. We turned back east seeking shelter. The trick is to ride the back of the receding wave, constantly adjusting steering and throttle to keep just short of the crest. I looked back - no sky visible - only a wall of water - the front of the following wave. The breakwall protection was distant. A we slowly approached it, I saw it was lined with people. I wondered why. When we finally reached the protection of the breakwall, I could see they were all looking at us. They had been watching to see if we were going to make it to safety.

Ogden Nash

Writer of doggerel. Examples:

"Candy, is dandy, but Liquor, is quicker."

"Children arn't happy with nothing to ignore, and that's what parents were created for."

"The cow is of the bovine ilk; one end is moo, the other, milk."

Pablo Picasso

In his later years he was not allowed to roam an art gallery unattended, as he had previously been discovered in the act of trying to improve on one of his old masterpieces.
(anonymous)

Louis Armstrong

Known as Sachmo, short for "Sachel Mouth". He grew up in New Orleans, played cornet in marching bands and on Mississippi riverboats. He launched the instrumental solo in jazz performances and established himself as a jazz virtuoso. I was once privileged to see him perform in person - incredible trumpet, ever present large white handerchief in his hand, gravel voice lyrics augmented with "scat" - what a happy evening! - I'll never forget it.

T. S. Eliot

"To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing; that is enough for one man's life."

Atheism is the superlative of self.

Rudyard Kipling

"I keep six honest serving men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
and How and Where and Who."
Here are some thoughts and lasting impressions from my six honest serving men:
Who - not the most learned, but those with the most heart.
What - not events or achievments, but love, ideas, friends.
When - anytime, unexpected revelations!
Where - Not where I've been, but home, whenever is now.
How - my constant challenge!
Why - I wish I knew?

James Clark Maxwell (1831-1879)

This Scotish genius originated the theory of electromagnetic radiation and developed the field equations setting the stage for Einstein's special theory of relativity. Einstein wrote: "Before Maxwell, physical reality was thought of as consisting in material particles. Since Maxwell, it has been thought of as represented by continuous fields. This change in the conception of reality is the most profound and the most fruitful that physics has experienced since the time of Newton."

Will and Ariel Durant

Many years ago, as I read Volume 10 of the Durants "History of Civilization" I was marveling at their prodigious vocabulary and had my dictionary at hand as always. I could follow their thought without precise understanding of some of thier words but I stubbornly refused to let them get by me with words I didn't fully understand - so I looked them up. Unfortunately, my memory is no match for my stubborness - otherwise , I would be able to talk man to man with William F. Buckley on even terms. Just for fun I wrote this using thier words:
"I speak to you from my seraglio - such as it is. My message is esoteric - hopefully erudite. I speak without avarice, hopefully euphoniously, but with rubicund integument should I be perceived as concupiscent as I am in no way profligate."

Ella Fitzgerald

I think she was the greatest ever singer of popular songs. She was noted for her purity of tone, faultless phrasing and intonation, and she outdid Louis Armstrong in scat singing - improvising sounds and syllables. She had a vocal range of three octaves. Ira Gershwin said of her: "I never knew how good our songs were until I heard Ella Fitzgerald sing them." I have recordings of her in my computer memory and never tire of listening to her - every recording is a treasure.

W. Somerset Maugham

"The passing moment is all we can be sure of; it is only common sense to extract its utmost value from it."

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

His masterpiece "Gulliver's Travels", published in 1726, has been a world classic. With biting wit, irony, and sparkling language, he ridiculed war, political parties, scientists, philosophers, and human vice. He wrote it, he said, "to vex the world rather than divert it."

Josh Billings

"If it wasn't for faith, there would be no living in this world; we couldn't even eat hash with any safety."

Federico Fellini

"It is very important to have memories in common. I think the most terrible thing that could happen would be to live so long that I outlived everyone who shared my memories."
(Sadly I learned, just yesterday, that a couple - both had passed away - Marg and Woody Hoch, Ruthie and I, shared such wonderful times together in the 1940s - Fellini was right - I live too long.)

Josh Billings

"Don't mistake pleasures for happiness. They are a different breed of dog."

Mark Twain

"I have made it a rule to go to bed when there wasn't anybody left to sit up with; and I have made it a rule to get up when I had to. In the matter of diet, I have been persistently strict in sticking to things which don't agree with me, until one or the other of us got the best of it. I have made it a rule never to smoke more than one cigar at a time. As for drinking, when the others drink I like to help. I have never taken any exercise, except sleeping and resting, and I never intend to take any. Exercise is loathsome."

James Thompson

On this day in 1740, his masque, "Alfred the Great" was first performed, an open air presentation before the Prince and Princess of Wales, a birthday present for the Princess. There were seven songs, one of which "Rule, Britannia" is now Britain's unofficial national anthem.

William Wordsworth

He was one of the great British romantics, the poet of the dreamer, the wanderer, the oddball, the nature lover. His poetry was simple; he described ordinary events and people at a time when poetry was cerebral and stale. An example:
"I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils."

A Vignette

Richard came to service my Heat Pump AC unit yesterday. I don't even know his last name, I was at the computer when he brought in the bill. I said "This is my lifeline to family and friends." He said quietly "I have a webcam and talk to my son in California face to face live over the internet." I looked at him in amazement. This soft-spoken unassuming elderly man is the last person I would have thought had computer savvy. I probed shamelessly. He had been a technician in Silicon Valley during the glory and gorey days at the very start of the computer revolution. His job was to help customers make software work that had been rushed into production too soon. In the process he even had to re-program software on occasion!
Life lesson: Don't trust first impressions. As Mark Twain said "There was never yet an uninteresting life."