Another pillar of the world is GONE. R.I.P. Maya Angelou

Personally, she led me to the understanding and beauty of poetry (when I watched Clinton's Inauguration).   Before that, it was Edna St. Vincent Millay's Renascence.  I remember watching her speak and feeling that I was being altered, almost genetically.    Maya Angelou was like watching a lyrical dance or hearing a perfectly balanced symphony.   She was all of the senses compiled into one beautiful human and teacher.

R.I.P. Nelson Mandela--one of the most beautiful, remarkable men who ever lived

A timely quote from JFK

"If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich."

--John F. Kennedy

Prescient, given the current ruin of our country.  This was in my professor's Race/Racism lecture in class last night.

The goddess DOROTHY PARKER: another great quote

"Heterosexuality is not normal, it's just common."
-Dorothy Parker

I am sorry for introducing such hideousness in the photos below, which is the opposite of this blogs purpose: this website is dedicated to beauty. But the hideous atrocities below illustrate Parker's beautiful observation in the most effective way:

Great Quote from OSCAR WILDE

“There is so much to be said in favor of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.”

Oscar Wilde

SUPERB! A new cool photo, finally. And, some fun words to say.

Fun photo from TIME's Today in Pictures. Ring-tailed Lemurs dine on a pre-Christmas surprise of dried fruits served à la Santa Claus boot at an animal park in Hamburg.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/today-in-pictures/0,31511,1945722,00.html#ixzz0YpyT5zvO

Philipp Guelland / AFP / Getty

These pictures are my "lazy" blog day listings. They're quick and easy to post and I don't have to worry too much about typos or bad grammar!

Or I should say they used to be. Time has a great photo collection on their website. I usually select the "cool" photos for this blog from their Today In Pictures or Pictures of the Week collections but for the last 2-3 months the options have been really slim, if non-existent. They haven't had any photos? you ask.

Yes, they've had plenty of photos. But they are all so bleak and depressing....photos of natural disasters; wars; death; destruction; decay; widows/orphans in dire straits; disease; despotism; jingoism/Republicanism (they both mean the same thing); former fascist, dastardly, deceitful, devious ex-Vice Presidents; dead superstars; disastrous, deceitful, devious, delirious, former Vice President Female Republican candidates; morbidly obese, drug-addicted, right wing talk show hosts; dim-witted former reality television stars with overly large families; dead-end wars fought by decrepit, antediluvian, archaic, duplicitous, religious political institutions; .....I could go on.

Don't, please! you say. I can't take anymore! you say.

Well at least we used some of my favorite words in the diatribe above. Don't you love words? I love a Thesaurus.

I suppose that this dearth of happy/positive photos is representative of the time in which we live. But couldn't they include a fucking frivolous photo like the one above, at least occasionally? So the world is coming to an end. Couldn't we have a happy moment or two as part of the mashup? It's our last possible chance for a smile.

My favorite word is fuck. It is the most expressive and exquisite word in the lexicon. Sorry to shock. But I have to be honest. What's even better than a fuck?.....saying the word "fuck" ("Prolly", as daninoksc says, because the word is the only thing available for my use!)

Or antediluvian. Or dearth. Aren't these great and fun words to speak??!!!

Dictionary.com sends out a daily email with a word of the day which, besides my first cup of coffee, is usually the only highlight to facing another "fresh hell" of a day ("fresh hell" thanks to Dorothy Parker: A line attributed many times to Shakespeare but actually it's from American author/critic/poet and wit Dorothy Parker. She is reported to have exclaimed "What fresh hell is this?" when her train of thought was interrupted by a telephone. She then started using it in place of "hello" when answering the phone or a knock at her door.)

Here's a really cool, interesting word from yesterday's dictionary.com email transmission. The word just sounds curious and the meaning is interesting (it's almost an onomatopoeia, no?).

Word of the Day

Friday, December 04, 2009

gallimaufry

\gal-uh-MAW-free\ , noun;

1.

A hodgepodge; jumble; confused medley.

Quotes:

Today bilingual programs are conducted in a gallimaufry of around 80 tongues, ranging from Spanish to Lithuanian to Micronesian Yapese.

-- Ezra Bowen, "For Learning or Ethnic Pride?", Time, July 8, 1985

We have the same eyes dark and chestnut hair. But I am a lame gallimaufry and she remains perfect.

-- Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible

Maran reports the daily jostlings and thrivings in a public school with 3,200 students, 185 teachers, 45 languages, a principal and five vice principals, five safety monitors, 62 sports teams and a gallimaufry of alternative programs, clubs and cliques.

-- Colman McCarthy, "A Writer Goes Back to School", Washington Post, August 20, 2001

Origin:

Gallimaufry, originally meaning "a hash of various kinds of meats," comes from French galimafrée, from Old French, from galer, "to rejoice, to make merry" (source of English gala) + mafrer, "to eat much," from Medieval Dutch maffelen, "to open one's mouth wide."

Have a great day! Let this gallimaufry of a blog posting put a smile on your face to mask the frown!

A timeless quote from Edith Sitwell

The public will believe anything, so long as it is not founded on truth.
-- Edith Sitwell (1887 - 1964)

Seems to be quite a relevant statement these days as well.

Photograph of Edith Sitwell by the brilliant Cecil Beaton, 1927

Remarkable Vanity Fair cover for July--and not just because of Johnny Depp

Just received the latest issue of Vanity Fair which has a very interesting cover. The face of Johnny Depp, that exquisitely beautiful man, takes up about 80% of the cover. Very interesting and quite a fascinating character study of a photograph. I can't stop exploring the photo of Depp's face. At the bottom right hand of the cover, though, on Depp's collar, just at the edge of the page, is a remarkable quote in very tiny print......you almost have to hunt for it through the wonderful distraction of Depp's face:

"There is only one success--to be able to spend your life in your own way."
--Christopher Morley

That really says it all, doesn't it? What a beautiful thought.

And what a beautiful cover...what a very anti-Photoshop/airbrush statement, no? with all of the recent commotion about airbrushed, faux perfection on magazine covers....and how unusual for a close up photo to take up so much room.....a unique, nontraditional, and captivating cover. This is not a vanity photo but perfectly gorgeous in every way if you ask me. See what I mean?