July 11, 2010

Sunday Quote






















Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart,
be all else but naught to me, save that thou art;
be thou my best thought in the day and the night,
both waking and sleeping, thy presence my light.

Be thou my wisdom, be thou my true word,
be thou ever with me, and I with thee Lord;
be thou my great Father, and I thy true son;
be thou in me dwelling, and I with thee one.

Be thou my breastplate, my sword for the fight;
be thou my whole armor, be thou my true might;
be thou my soul's shelter, be thou my strong tower:
O raise thou me heavenward, great Power of my power.

Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise:
be thou mine inheritance now and always;
be thou and thou only the first in my heart;
O Sovereign of heaven, my treasure thou art.

High King of heaven, thou heaven's bright sun,
O grant me its joys after victory is won;
great Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
still be thou my vision, O Ruler of all.


- Celtic Hymn

July 9, 2010

Play! What are you?









If I were a day I’d be THURSDAY
If I were a time of day I’d be DUSK
If I were a planet I’d be ONE YET DISCOVERED
If I were a sea animal I’d be a SEAL
If I were a direction I’d be EAST
If I were a piece of furniture I’d be a COMFY ARMCHAIR
If I were a liquid I’d be SANGRIA
If I were a gem stone I’d be a RUBY
If I were a tree I’d be a MAPLE
If I were a tool I’d be a SCREWDRIVER
If I were a flower I’d be a WILD ROSE
If I were an element of weather I’d be a SUMMER THUNDERSTORM
If I were a musical instrument I’d be a VIOLIN
If I were a color I'd be SUMMER SKY BLUE
If I were an emotion I’d be PENSIVE
f I were a fruit I’d be a PEACH
If I were a sound I’d be THE INCOMING TIDE
If I were an element I'd be WATER
If I were a car I’d be a VINTAGE MUSTANG CONVERTIBLE
If I were a food I’d be BLUEBERRY JAM.
If I were a place I’d be A BEACH OFF SEASON
If I were a material I'd be COTTON
If I were a taste I’d be SALTY
If I were a scent I’d be JASMINE
If I were a body part I’d be EYES
If I were a song I’d be ONE SUNG BY SANDY DENNY
If I were a bird I'd be a OWL.
If I were a gift I'd be BOOK
If I were a city I'd be in NEW ENGLAND
If I were a door I'd always be OPEN
I were a pair of shoes I’d be SUEDE BLACK MERRILLS
If I were a poem I would be FREE VERSE


Here's a fun batch of If I were questions that I just had to answer - thanks to
Yolanda's Perfectly Imperfect blog. (Hopefully link now fixed on edit!) So copy and paste to your blog and change the answers and send a link if you will - what would you be?

July 8, 2010

Carnival of a Thousand Souls Bwah Hah hah




















Well, not really. I just always think of Ray Bradbury and his dark spin on carnivals - Something Wicked This Way Comes. For sheer mix of cheap magical appeal, I can't resist these kind of photo opps - love the carny feel, the neon light mixed with summer evenings, how as a child they always felt a little on the wild side walking through, the people calling trying to lure you over to shoot an a fake gun at an impossible target. Did a quick walk through here - the Fireman's Festival in Mamaroneck (hardly the lurid stuff of old time Bradbury carnivals) - before running back to see the fireworks on the far side of the harbor. Love the Ferris Wheel - love all ferris wheels - must be something deep about the shape, the mandala, the circle of life, the wheel to the sky (I know, I'll stop already).

July 7, 2010

Electric flowers in a neon garden





















What serendipity to discover that my photos from the Fourth's Harbor Island fireworks came out a tad different than envisioned - these are electric anemones in an acid ocean, neon gardens, the flash punch pow of cartoon booms - great fun, happy accidents.

Fireworks, reinterpreted





July 6, 2010

Stay cool, everybody














102 degrees today and the library did not feel a whole heckava lot cooler. Dreading another hot day tomorrow. I will try to think like the fish and be cool.

July 5, 2010

TuckerBoo!12






The unlikely name for my daughter's new pup - alternately sweet and feisty, he is quite the charmer. We know Moky is smiling at us knowing the magic of silly puppytude (growling at ice cubes, charging at socks, endless kisses, wonder at everything) is healing and life-affirming.

July 4, 2010

Sunday Quote (Happy Fourth!)



















"Oh, it's home again and home again, America for me! I want a ship that's westward bound to plough the rolling sea, to the blessed land of Room Enough beyond the ocean bars, where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars."

-Henry Van Dyke

July 1, 2010

Woofs and Wonders













Noticed this dog running cloud last night on our evening walk. On this evening's stroll, sans camera, saw a cloud that looked just like a dog running in the opposite direction. Could this be a portent of something Sirius?

June 29, 2010

Summer sounds of children














A stay at home day, recovering from some strange debilitating summer flu, feel weak and tired in an "I've got the vapors" sort of way...but the windows are open and the sounds of my child and the neighborhood children drift into the window, summer sounds, laughter and jokes, the kind of easy talk that comes with wandering around in damp bathing suits and barefeet, and it is the sweetest sounds, the summer sounds of children.

June 27, 2010

Sunday Quote






















Deep peace of the running wave to you,
Deep peace of the flowing air to you,
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you,
Deep peace of the shining stars to you,
Deep peace of the Son of Peace to you.

-Celtic Prayer, The OneWorld Book of Prayer

June 26, 2010

Library windows














The theme for summer reading in New York State (and a fair amount of others) is Make a Splash (with reading at your library presumably), hence our themed windows. Have to say afterwards I wish I had done an Amos and Boris whale and continued the mouse theme and put a whole lot more fish up but a girl gets tired and I was mostly winging it (my original sketch was a beach scene - sort of
Harry the dog at the beach but then I realized I have zero sense of perspective and couldn't pull it off). I generally decorate the library windows twice a year - spring reading program and then summer as both have themes. One of my favorite comments ever was an adult telling me that it was so great I made my art kid-friendly. No attempt at a childlike quality - this is the way I draw!

June 25, 2010

and the seasons they go round and round...








Last day of school, last day of fifth grade. He is now a middle-schooler he tells me, one minute cocky and thrilled, the next feeling a bit bereft and melancholy that his six years at his elementary school has drawn to a close. I felt the latter, driving to work after dropping him off for the last time there, thinking how eager he is to be an older boy like his brother and how, though I love them so at any age, I miss my children younger, those young ones lost to memories and photo albums, driving down the sunlit roads playing the Joni Michell song one plays when feeling the years. Ah, this gig of aging... Hard to believe my last child is not even in grade school any longer.

June 22, 2010

Pippi Longstocking's House

















or at least the house they used in a movie about the beloved high-spirited girl. This glimpse taken from a tour boat looking back at Amelia Island in Florida. The guide said that the scene was ice cream mayhem - lots of children running about eating ice cream cones. They used local kids from Fernandino Beach and around Amelia Island as extras, however the problem was the ice cream kept melting in the Florida heat so they used scoops of mashed potatoes in the cones.

June 21, 2010

Terrible Crap!




Looking through a few poetry books, first two handfuls grabbed from the bookshelf that sits in the hall filled with poetry (you would think it would sprout wings and flowers). I am looking for a poem for a friend, finding many gems but not for the type poem requested, more poems that remind me of why I love poems and how they speak to me between the lines and after the commas and periods and the close of the books. There is one book, a slim volume, I won't name the poor poet, as besides being a mere 25 cents marked at the book fair, someone has scrawled "Terrible Crap!" on the title page. I can't remember if I have seen that before - I am just perverse enough to buy a book of poems just for that reason alone. I like to browse. I can tell a good poem from a bad poem - but often I like a bad poem as well as a good - for the heart or thought behind it, for a winning line. I take my poems from songs and subway walls and tidy lines and ambiguities and clear as a bell and Hallmark sentimentalities and children's scrawls and little pockets and enormous shattering truths. Best, the poem that lands on your open palm like a snowflake, ice star, magical, melting the words into your skin, a soul's tattoo.

June 20, 2010

Sunday Quote






It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.

- Diane Ackerman

June 14, 2010

Future Guy Say Wha, part one









Running from the mutant transforming aliens, a boy ducks into a tunnel hoping to hide, little realizing it is a TUNNEL OF TIME and within moments he is zapped by the gammablueberryjamma rays and thrust into the OUTER REACHES of time, a world unlike his own where giant plastic flowers grow and ginormous insects wait their next meal...our young friend, if he is not careful....stay tuned for the next installment of FUTURE GUY SAY WHA? whenever we get around to posting it.

June 13, 2010

Sunday Quote





Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms or books that are written in a foreign tongue. The point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live your way some distant day into the answers.

- Rainer Maria Rilke

June 11, 2010

Day fifty-three








Photographs of the beautiful Florida coast, the heartbreak of what we are losing.