rise in morning torn
desire improve, enjoy world
makes day hard to plan
If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy.
If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem.
But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world.
This makes it hard to plan the day.
E. B. White: Notes and Comment, interview with Israel Shenker, July 11, 1969; New York Times; quoted in E. B. White: A Biography, by Scott Elledge, p. 3
every great river
every sea, belongs to none
and belongs to all
Based on the line, Like every great river and every great sea, the moon belongs to none and belongs to all.
From Moon Landing, by EB White, July 26, 1969; in Writings from The New Yorker, 1925–1976.
Mr. White was writing about the Apollo 11 moon landings in 1969,
The picture is from the Calhoun Street Dock on the May River in Bluffton, SC.
Mr. White watched the moon landings, like I did, on television.
I was at the Calhoun Street Dock on the May River in Bluffton, SC, last night.
Mr. White was referring to the moment when the Astronauts planted the US Flag in the surface of moon.
last night, my wife said it was such a nice night, with the temp in the low 80’s, we should go see the sunset at the bluff over the river.
I am thinking of how many people were there to see it.
To see the view.
To share the view.
And come away with their own thoughts.
It belongs to none.
It belongs to all.
At the same time.
Neat trick!
With the tide, the light, the season, it is always a new scene, a different view, at the bluff over the river.
Not saying I could never get tired of it.
But I am willing to take on the research project.
beware stations near
notorious Orlando
International
I was discussing travel advisories that countries around the world issue for the United States and I got to thinking, just what do these advisories say?
At this time, I have a Niece and Nephew-in-law who are working in at a hospital in the Democratic Republic of the Congo about which the United States Dept of State has issued a Level 3: Reconsider Travel warning with the usual comments like:
The eastern DRC region and the three Kasai provinces (Kasai, Kasai-Oriental, Kasai-Central) due to crime, civil unrest, armed conflict and kidnapping.
The U.S. government has extremely limited ability to provide emergency consular services to U.S. citizens outside of Kinshasa due to poor infrastructure and security conditions.
So I looked up the the current and official Foreign travel advice for Travel in the United States as issued by His Majesty’s Government Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office.
Under Safety and Security: Road Travel, HMG warns:
Driving is on the right hand side of the road.
Check the weather conditions before embarking on a long journey.
Do not sleep in your car by the roadside or in rest areas and avoid leaving any items on display in your car.
Petrol stations that do not display the price of fuel usually charge considerably more than the national average for a gallon of fuel. They’re often found close to tourist destinations and airports, and notoriously near to Orlando International Airport.
There you are.
Beware gas stations notoriously near to Orlando International Airport.
The Online Oxford Learners dictionary defines notoriously as in a way that is well known for being bad.
On the other hand, those have Gas Stations made the list.
You can almost hear, The U.K. government has extremely limited ability to provide emergency consular services to U.K. Subjects close to tourist destinations and airports, and notoriously near to Orlando International Airport.
dyeing an orange,
orange, man’s most impudent
gesture to this date
In the kitchen cabinet is a bag of oranges for morning juice.
Each orange is stamped “Color Added.”
The dyeing of an orange, to make it orange, is man’s most impudent gesture to date.
It is really an appalling piece of effrontery, carrying the clear implication that Nature doesn’t know what she is up to.
On a Florida Key, February 1941; Essays of E. B. White, p. 13
brought the sense of change
or irresponsibility
reckless as they were
I was going to write that if you read the books and essays of the 100 years ago, your know the phrase, “The Lost Generation” but as so few folks read books and essays of 100 years ago I am going to write that I came across an interesting comment on the people of the lost generation.
I came across a series of books published by George Plimpton’s Paris Review titled, Writers at Work.
There are 9 or 10 books in the series and they are collections of interviews with some of the great, well known and great mostly unknown writers of the 20th Century.
Certainly I have my favorites and I quickly searched out the interview Dorothy Parker.
Hoping against hope for something good (Jim Harrison once wrote that in every interview he ever gave, he would just repeat the question and say, I AGREE, to get the interview over with IE Question: MR. Harrison, would you say that while Hemingway must be counted among the American Greats, today he is little read and has even less impact? – Mr. Harrison : “Yes I would say that while Hemingway must be counted among the American Greats, today he is little read and has even less impact!” Harrison said nothing made interviewers happier than responses like this – but I digress) and I was stunned to read this quote in the Dorothy Parker interview.
Gertrude Stein did us the most harm when she said, “You’re all a lost generation.” That got around to certain people and we all said, “Whee! We re lost.” Perhaps it suddenly brought to us the sense of change. Or irresponsibility. But don’t forget that, though the people in the twenties seemed like flops, they weren’t. Fitzgerald, the rest of them, reckless as they were, drinkers as they were, they worked damn hard and all the time.
Now to wikipedia, The Lost Generation was the social generational cohort in the Western world that was in early adulthood during World War I. The generation is generally defined as people born from 1883 to 1900. The term is also particularly used to refer to a group of American expatriate writers living in Paris during the 1920s. Gertrude Stein is credited with coining the term, and it was subsequently popularised by Ernest Hemingway, who used it in the epigraph for his 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises: “You are all a lost generation. Lost” in this context refers to the “disoriented, wandering, directionless” spirit of many of the war’s survivors in the early postwar period.
And I have ever been taught to regard the original statement by Ms. Stein the term as used by Mr. Hemingway as something sacred in American Literature.
See, these folks were lost.
See, these folks were hardened by their times.
See, though says Ms. Parker, we got a pass. We’re lost!
A sense of change.
A sense of irresponsibility.
See we’re boomers.
See we’re Gen X.
See we’re Gen Y.
See we’re Millennials.
See, it’s not our fault, WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
