every day hear a
little song, read a good poem,
see a fine picture

He was wont to say, “Men are so inclined to content themselves with what is commonest; the spirit and the senses so easily grow dead to the impressions of the beautiful and perfect, — that every one should study, by all methods, to nourish in his mind the faculty of feeling these things.

For no man can bear to be entirely deprived of such enjoyments: it is only because they are not used to taste of what is excellent that the generality of people take delight in silly and insipid things, provided they be new.

For this reason,” he would add, ” one ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”

With such a turn of thought in Serlo, which in some degree was natural to him, the persons who frequented his society could scarcely be in want of pleasant conversation.

From Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, translated by Thomas Carlyle (Robertson, Ashford and Bentley: London, 1901).

It is only because they are not used to taste of what is excellent that the generality of people take delight in silly and insipid things, provided they be new.

Maybe there is the nub of the problem.

We have moved to far away from what it was like to live in America that folks today are not used to taste of what is excellent that the generality of people take delight in silly and insipid things, provided they be new.

That man currently if office has an endless supply of shiny new things to pull out of his hat that some folks take delight in.

Silly and insepid things.

And here is the real trick,

All he has to do is SAY they are new.

For this reason, one ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.

For today, I will let you choose the little song.

I hesitate to suggest one as it will get stuck in your mind and loop and loop and loop until you cannot stand it.

But I did recently come across this version, Just A Closer Walk With Thee by Sammy Miller and The Congregation Big Band that I enjoyed:

For the good poem, may I suggest Motto by Langston Hughes?

I play it cool
I dig all jive.
That's the reason
I stay alive.

My motto
As I live and learn,
        is:
Dig And Be Dug

In Return.

From The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes (New York : A. A. Knopf : Distributed by Random House, 1994)

For a good picture here is a recent photo of the Maye River from the Calhoun Street Dock that I took on a foggy Sunday Morning in Bluffton, SC.

And for a few reasonable words may I suggest this passage by Mark Twain in Huckleberry Finn:

We catched fish and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness.

It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big, still river, laying on our backs looking up at the stars, and we didn’t ever feel like talking loud, and it warn’t often that we laughed — only a little kind of a low chuckle.

We had mighty good weather as a general thing, and nothing ever happened to us at all — that night, nor the next, nor the next.

Try these out today and I bet you will scarcely be in want of pleasant conversation.

permitting over
accumulation of books
in the premises

Adapted from the article, Too Many Books? and sub headed, Mendel Uminer faced a crisis when his landlord objected to the 10,000 volumes in his New York studio apartment by Alex Vadukul, a features writer for the Styles section of The New York Times, specializing in stories about New York City.

Mr. Vadukul quotes Mr. Uminer as saying, ““I’m always reading,” Uminer, 31, said. “I’m reading to extract knowledge. Every book I own, I need. My library is my manual for life.”

Mr. Vadukul writes about Mr. Uminer, “that He worked as a freelance Hebrew translator and used the apartment as the headquarters for his fledgling literary journal, Notarikon Review, hosting parties that gained a reputation among quarters of New York’s literary underclass. Striving writers drank beer among the teetering stacks while arguing over foreign affairs and Greek poetry.

The stacks kept rising as Uminer added his hauls from thrift shops, book dealers and eBay deliveries. “I don’t think of myself as a hoarder,” he said, “but I guess my building did.”

This past winter, he received a notice from building management. “You are violating a substantial obligation of your tenancy,” it began. “You are maintaining the Premises in a severely overcluttered condition; permitting the over-accumulation of books in the Premises; creating a fire hazard by over-accumulating combustible books in the Premises.”

Mr. Vadukul quotes a friend of Mr. Uminer, “I think it’s possible his landlord might have their priorities misplaced, or might not understand him. If you’re not steeped in his culture, maybe his library does look chaotic. But I’d argue it only looks like a mess. I’ll bet he can tell you where every single book is in his apartment.”

I did not know that maintaining the Premises in a severely overcluttered condition by permitting the over-accumulation of books in the Premises; creating a fire hazard by over-accumulating combustible books in the Premises, was a crime.

I sure knew books burned.

Think of the stories of the burning of the Library of Alexandria by Julius Caesar and the stories of the great Los Angeles Public Library Fire of 1986.

But that you could be cited for the over-accumulation of books in the premises?

Just something wrong there.

I think of the self graded quiz prepared by writer Paul Fussell so that readers could look over their homes and come up a rating for the ‘class’ radiated by said home.

The higher the score, the more ‘class’ inherent in the home.

These questions were part of the quiz.

Bookcase(s) partially filled with books – add 5
Any old leather bindings more than 75 years old – add 6
Bookcase(s) filled with books – add 7
Overflow books stacked on floor, chairs, ETC – add 6

Today, maintaining the Premises in a severely overcluttered condition by permitting the over-accumulation of books in the Premises; creating a fire hazard by over-accumulating combustible books in the Premises, is a violation.

Just one more sign of the approaching apocalypse.