Wednesday

Abraham Lincoln's Cooper Union Address

Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln (Photo credit: casually_cruel)
Abraham Lincoln's Cooper Union Address:

 "In October 1859 Abraham Lincoln accepted an invitation to lecture at Henry Ward Beecher's church in Brooklyn, New York, and chose a political topic which required months of painstaking research. His law partner William Herndon observed, "No former effort in the line of speech-making had cost Lincoln so much time and thought as this one," a remarkable comment considering the previous year's debates with Stephen Douglas.

The carefully crafted speech examined the views of the 39 signers of the Constitution. Lincoln noted that at least 21 of them -- a majority -- believed Congress should control slavery in the territories, not allow it to expand. Thus, the Republican stance of the time was not revolutionary, but similar to the Founding Fathers, and should not alarm Southerners (radicals had threatened to secede if a Republican was elected President)."


Enhanced by Zemanta

Tuesday

Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie

Five Little Pigs (Hercule Poirot #24)Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

one star because it is Agatha Christie.

Christie the best-selling novelist of all time. Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie . . . two stars to relieve my guilt.
guilt? yes, guilt at not having dropped this book at the moment i realized that it was becoming a chore to open the darn thing.

all the way to the end i never once cared whodunnit. it is stubborn stupidity that kept me reading.

and here's the most embarrasing detail of all: at page 184, almost at the end, i decided to just jump to the end page 219 and get it over with. whodunnit? who? who izzit? i did not recognize the character. where had this character come from? so i turned back a few pages to see how we got to this reveal.

good lawd almighty, the character is a main character. i'd just spent almost 200 pages with this character and yet . . . ready? . . .i could not even remember any of the characters names (did not care) except for the hero, Hercule Poirot, who in this book is always only listening to other characters until, magically, at the next to last page he deciphers the mystery. good grief, i hate this book.

heck, i take that second star back! sorry, Agatha, there's always your fans.

..
.ero
.

View all my reviews

Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie
Cover of Agatha Christie



one star because it is Agatha Christie. Christie the best-selling novelist of all time. Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie . . . two stars to relieve my guilt.
guilt? yes, guilt at not having dropped this book at the moment i realized that it was becoming a chore to open the darn thing. 

all the way to the end i never once cared whodunnit. it is stubborn stupidity that kept me reading.

 and here's the most embarrasing detail of all: at page 184, almost at the end, i decided to just jump to the end page 219 and get it over with. whodunnit? who? who izzit? i did not recognize the character. where had this character come from? so i turned back a few pages to see how we got to this reveal. 

good lawd almighty, the character is a main character. i'd just spent almost 200 pages with this character and yet . . . ready? . . .i could not even remember any of the characters names (did not care) except for the hero, Hercule Poirot, who in this book is always only listening to other characters until, magically, at the next to last page he deciphers the mystery. good grief, i hate this book.

heck, i take that second star back! sorry, Agatha, there's always your fans.

..
.ero
.



Enhanced by Zemanta

Thursday

different from everyone else

David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace (Photo credit: Steve Rhodes)

Everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Sunday

Woody Guthrie, "Born to Win,"



photograph via:
Nora Guthrie: Her Father's Daughter
  http://bit.ly/Xi2O7Q























Woody Guthrie, holding his guitar, was taken at McSorley's Old Ale House.
"This machine fights fascism"
 - {fascism continues to be a threat to world peace and security.}

I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good.
I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose.
Bound to lose.  No good to nobody.  No good for nothing.
Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim too ugly
or too this or too that.
Songs that run you down or poke fun at you on account of your bad luck
or hard traveling.

I am out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air
and my last drop of blood.

I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world
and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops,
no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built,
I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself
and in your work.

And the songs that I sing are made up for the most part by all sorts
of folks just about like you.

I could hire out to the other side, the big money side, and get
several dollars every week just to quit singing my own kind of songs
and to sing the kind that knock you down still farther and the ones that
poke fun at you even more and the ones that make you think you've not got
any sense at all.  But I decided a long time ago that I'd starve to death
before I'd sing any such songs as that.  The radio waves and your movies
and your jukeboxes and your songbooks are already loaded down and
running over with such no good songs as that anyhow.

Woody Guthrie, "Born to Win,"









Enhanced by Zemanta

Geoffrey Bartholomew, the bard of McSorley's Old Ale House, publishes his second book of pub poems - NY Daily News

English: McSorley's Old Ale House
English: McSorley's Old Ale House (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Geoffrey Bartholomew, the bard of McSorley's Old Ale House, publishes his second book of pub poems - NY Daily News:

 "'Light or Dark' focuses on the bar's role in history and the patrons through the ages, like Abraham Lincoln and Walt Whitman"



...ero.
Enhanced by Zemanta

Wednesday

Civil War Love Letters

Civil War Volunteers
Civil War Volunteers (Photo credit: Marion Doss)
Civil War Love Letters:

 ""My Precious Loulie...":
Love letters of the Civil War

When he wasn't marching, fighting, or setting up camp, the Civil War soldier might take a few moments to write to his loved ones at home. These letters often contain accounts of battles, life in camp, and general news. But many soldiers, as they marched off to face the enemy, had left behind a wife or sweetheart, and to them they would compose sweet, poignant, and occasionally funny letters that give life and personality to the participants in this great national conflict."


 These love letters from Civil War soldiers "show their sorrows of being apart,
fears that the soldier would not return home, and hopes for the future after the
war's end." In addition, "some of the letters are comical, as is the letter from
an unknown soldier to a woman who evidently answered his 'lonely-hearts'
advertisement." Includes images and transcriptions of this small collection of
letters. From the University Libraries of Virginia Tech.
Enhanced by Zemanta

What's the good of living if you don't try a few things?

Love Poems- Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More

Love Poems- Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More:


Poets.org: Love Poems

"A very small sample of both new and classic love poems" from
 poets such as William Shakespeare, W.B. Yeats, and Robert Penn
 Warren. Includes a list of poems, links to selected poems,
 biographical information about poets, and links
to related poems about friendship, marriage, and passion and
 sex. From the Academy of American Poets.


URL: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5860




Sunday

A Butterfly in Church


via
Bartlby's
   http://www.bartleby.com/

James Weldon Johnson, ed. (1871–1938).  The Book of American Negro Poetry.  1922.

A Butterfly in Church
http://www.bartleby.com/269/28.html
  ~~ George Marion McClellan


WHAT dost thou here, thou shining, sinless thing,
With many colored hues and shapely wing?
Why quit the open field and summer air
To flutter here? Thou hast no need of prayer.

’Tis meet that we, who this great structure built,    
Should come to be redeemed and washed from guilt,
For we this gilded edifice within
Are come, with erring hearts and stains of sin.

But thou art free from guilt as God on high;
Go, seek the blooming waste and open sky,      
And leave us here our secret woes to bear,
Confessionals and agonies of prayer.

..
.ero
Enhanced by Zemanta

Gertrude Stein: Age


 “We are always the same age inside. ”
— Gertrude Stein

Don McLean- American Pie (with Lyrics) - YouTube

Don McLean- American Pie (with Lyrics) - YouTube: ""