It’s been more than a year since I posted anything to this neglected piece of digital real estate. If you’re looking for something fresher, you’ll find me now at Idlings. Posting there is spotty, mostly book reviews and photos, but please follow me there if you’re interested.
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The old Albina branch library in Portland, Oregon – my photo
[INTERMISSION: I’m taking a break from this blog until further notice.]
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“I give you me, Lunardi – whom all the ladies love.”
~ Vincenzo Lunardi, 18th-century Italian balloonist, toasting himself
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“I wonder if there isn’t a lot of bunkum in higher education? I never found that people who were learned in logarithms and other kinds of poetry were any quicker in washing dishes or darning socks. I’ve done a good deal of reading when I could, and I don’t want to ‘admit impediments’ to the love of books, but I’ve also seen lots of good, practical folk spoiled by too much fine print. Reading sonnets always gives me hiccups, too.”
~ Christopher Morley, Parnassus on Wheels
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Meadow on Powell Butte in Portland, Oregon – my photo
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“Let us stay at home: there we are decent. Let us not go out: our defects wait for us at the door, like flies.”
~ Jules Renard, Journal
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“Society and the world are like a library where at first glance all seems in order, for the books are arranged according to their shapes and sizes, but where, on closer scrutiny, there is seen to be utter confusion, because there has been no grouping under subject matter, class, or author.”
~ Nicolas Chamfort, Maximes et pensées
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“Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of other persons.”
~ Mark Twain, Notebooks
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“To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.”
~ Oscar Wilde, Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young
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Chief Bald Eagle Aboard the USS Recruit (1915-1920), Library of Congress
Afield Notes 