Squeak, Squeak I Tell You!

...this one squeaks, er, umm...speaks for itself...

...saw on the news yesterday that it snowed in Dubai for only the second time in recorded history...the folks native to that area don't even have a word for "snow"...

...perhaps they could borrow one from the Inuit Tribe...i understand they have dozens of them...

a remarkable voice and even more remarkable poet...

We grow too soon old and too late smart.

~ Pennsylvania Dutch proverb ~

...former President George W. Bush...those words taste like honey in the mouth before spilling out...

...should you happen to be watching the Inauguration tomorrow and catch a view of the dome of the capitol building, regard the statue placed on top...this work of art was cast at the Clark Mills foundry in Maryland and as the work was being started, the foreman of the foundry went on strike for higher wages and a man named Philip Reid was placed in charge of the casting, assembly and installation of the statue completed on Dec. 2, 1863...

Philip Reid was a slave owned by the owner of the foundry...

...the name of the statue is Freedom...

a song for Shell by my second favorite Irish singer...

...something Pixie said made me think of this song...most things in my life seem to relate to music directly or indirectly...

Great Aunt Cleo's Hat Pin.

I love you, Punkin. <3

pity this busy monster, manunkind,

not. Progress is a comfortable disease
your victim (death and life safely beyond)

plays with the bigness of his littleness
...electrons deify one razorblade
into a mountainrange; lenses extend
unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish
returns on its unself.

A world of made
is not a world of born...pity poor flesh

and trees, poor stars and stones, but never this
fine specimen of hypermagical

ultraomnipotence. We doctors know

a hopeless case if....listen; there's a hell
of a nice universe next door; let's go


~ e.e. cummings~

...in the midst of such darkness, a little ray of light...

War

...this song has been running through my brain on a continuous loop for a couple weeks now and i felt compelled to put it here after i heard the story i'm about to relate...

...a few days ago in Gaza, amidst the horrors and privations of armed conflict, a twenty year old mother was able to secure food for her ten-month old baby after days of going without...as she was preparing the food, an Israeli airstrike took place and destroyed their home...the life of that tiny, innocent human being was snuffed out by high explosives easier than one blows out a candle...the mother survived and what she said tore out my heart and will stick with me for the rest of my days...she said what hurts most is knowing that her baby died hungry...all because we disagree on the name of the Supreme Being...a Supreme Being that apparently could give a flying fuck about ten month old babies in war zones...

know religion, know war

no religion, no war...

Grammy's Afghan

...this is more than just an assemblage of multi-colored yarns...it has travelled with me for over twenty five years...always on the foot of my bed when the weather grows cold, even on the road with the band, it has covered more miles than most humans...

...this afghan has connections to both of my grandmothers...when my paternal grandmother died, i went with my father to help pack up two lifetimes of stuff...my grandfather had passed several years before, so it was left to us to close up the house...in Grandma's sewing room was a tailor's and seamstress' treasure trove...boxes and coffee cans loaded with buttons of a thousand different hues, shapes and sizes...a rack with hundreds of spools of thread arrayed in a rainbow from black all the way to white...bolt after bolt of cloth, cotton, courderoy, satin, silk, polyester, and numerous bags stuffed with balls of yarn...

...my maternal grandmother, Grammy, was given all of these balls of yarn and set to crocheting and knitting them into afghans and such...

...there is love and magic in every stitch...