6.20.2025 – summer world bright fresh

summer world bright fresh
just far enough away seem
dreamy, reposeful

Sun on the back parking lot on Hilton Head Island – Longest day of the year at 7AM

Saturday morning was come, and all the summer world was bright and fresh, and brimming with life. There was a song in every heart; and if the heart was young the music issued at the lips. There was cheer in every face and a spring in every step. The locust trees were in bloom and the fragrance of the blossoms filled the air. Cardiff Hill, beyond the village and above it, was green with vegetation, and it lay just far enough away to seem a Delectable Land, dreamy, reposeful, and inviting.

From Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.

The prelude to Tom Sawyer whitewashing the back fence.

After painting this word picture and opening the door to an early summer day, which I have used for the first day of summer, the longest day of the year, Mr. Twain slams the door shut with the words, “Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a burden.“

I have to take my hat off to Mr. Twain and stand in awe of the simple combination of simple words that takes us to a mountain top.

All the summer world was bright and fresh, and brimming with life.

There was a song in every heart; and if the heart was young the music issued at the lips.

There was cheer in every face and a spring in every step.

… just far enough away to seem a Delectable Land, dreamy, reposeful, and inviting.

Then with the same use of simple words, Mr. Twain shoves us off the mountain.

… all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit.

Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high.

Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a burden.

I can see it.

I can feel it.

I can hear it in my soul.

Screen shot of my iPhone Compass – at 7am – Sun was at 61 degrees ENE – notice its already 79 and I am 21 feet above sea level … which was off by 15 feet.

6.17.2025 – manipulating

manipulating
parameters fine-tuning
the algorithm

Based on the passage:

Needlework and computer coding might seem to be incongruous pursuits, but for the Dutch artist Anna Lucia Goense, the combination has provided infinite creative possibilities.

“If you look at cross-stitching or working with a loom or even knitting patterns, they are always binary systems on grids,” said Ms. Goense, 33, who is known professionally as Anna Lucia. Her focus is generative art, a process that involves designing systems, manipulating parameters and fine-tuning algorithms to create artworks that can range from browser-based animations to textiles such as quilts and embroidered fabrics.

In the article: What Do Computer Code and Needlework Have in Common? By Libby Banks (Reporting from Berlin!).

Along with the concept itself of art from computer code, I had to admire the role of syllables in that sentence:

… generative art, a process that involves designing systems, manipulating parameters and fine-tuning algorithms to create artworks that can range from browser-based animations to textiles such as quilts and embroidered fabrics.

6.14.2025 – flag of stars, of man!

flag of stars, of man!
sure and steady step, passing
highest flags of kings

“Flag Day, Fifth Avenue, July 4th 1916” by Frederick Childe Hassam.

FLAG of stars! thick-sprinkled bunting!
Long yet your road, fateful flag!—long yet your road,
and lined with bloody death!
For the prize I see at issue, at last is the world!
All its ships and shores I see, interwoven with your
threads, greedy banner!
—Dream’d again the flags of kings, highest borne, to
flaunt unrivall’d?
O hasten, flag of man! O with sure and steady step,
passing highest flags of kings,
Walk supreme to the heavens, mighty symbol—run up
above them all,
Flag of stars! thick sprinkled bunting!

Flag of Stars By Walt Whitman as printed in Walt Whitman: The Complete poetry and selected prose and letters, London, The Nonesuch Press, 1964

6.13.2025 – how the time matters

how the time matters
in which virtue of even
the best man happens

Proh Dolor! Quantum refert in quae tempora vel optimi cujusque virtus incidat.

Or …

Oh, how much does it matter into what times the virtue of even the best man falls!

Or …

O how much does the time matter in which the virtue of even the best man happens.

Or …

Even the best of men may be born in times unsuited to their virtues.

It is the Latin, Proh Dolor! Quantum refert in quae tempora vel optimi cujusque virtus incidat, that is carved on the tomb of Pope Adrian IV.

He got to be Pope for of one and a half years during the Reformation (January, 1522 to September, 1523).

The ONLY Dutch Pope.

Some felt he would have been a GREAT Pope but for his untimely death and that his attention during his Papacy was taken over by Protestant protests.

Thus the inscription on his tomb, Proh Dolor! Quantum refert in quae tempora vel optimi cujusque virtus incidat, or Even the best of men may be born in times unsuited to their virtues.

I have to say that, while I will not be counted among the best of men, I am certainly born in times unsuited to my virtues.

FDR is once wrote to Winston Churchill that it It was fun to be in the same decade with you.

Well it isn’t fun being in the same decade as that man in office.

Taking a cue from the white house, folks are crabby, folks are mean, folks are cutting and because of this folks are worried and folks are unceratain.

Americans used to and were used to living carefree lives compared to most of the world.

Care Free!

No one was going to come to our door and demand to come.

We never had to ‘show our papers’.

I didn’t even know what ‘papers’ were.

For much of what the World worried about, Americans were care free.

Not any more and all because of one man.

It isn’t fair that I have live in the same decade with that man.

Proh Dolor! Quantum refert in quae tempora vel optimi cujusque virtus incidat.

BTW, after Adrian VI, it was another 460 years before the Catholic Church tried out another Pope who wasn’t Italian.

Did I mention Adrian VI was Dutch?

6.6.2025 – be joyful in hope

but I shall stay the
way I am because I … I
do not give a damn

OBSERVATION

If I don’t drive around the park,
I’m pretty sure to make my mark.
If I’m in bed each night by ten,
I may get back my looks again,
If I abstain from fun and such,
I’ll probably amount to much,
But I shall stay the way I am,
Because I do not give a damn.

As printed in Enough Rope by Dorothy Parker
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