Big Blue

It's a good thing I didn't put away Big Blue, again, my winter blanket. It's nice to see the weather get this cold in the second half of April. They were forecasting that the temperature might dip below forty, though by our own themometer, we are not even going into the forties, but close, very close.

1789 Washington's Inauguration

On April 30, George Washington rose early, sprinkled powder on his hair, and prepared for his great day. At noon, accompanied by a legislative escort, he rode to Federal Hall in a fancy yellow carriage to take the oath of office. Ten thousand ecstatic New Yorkers squeezed into the surrounding streets to observe the historic moment. Hamilton, who had done as much as anyone to bring it about, looked on distantly from the balcony of his Wall Street home. From the outset, the fifty-seven-year-old Washington was determined to strike a happy medium between regal dignity and Republican austerity. Resplendent with a ceremonial sword at his side, he also wore a plain brown suit of American broadcloth woven at a mill in Hartford. A special message for Hamilton’s future was encoded in this outfit: that America should encourage manufactures, especially textiles, an industry dominated by Great Britain. Washington hoped it would soon “be unfashionable for a gentleman to appear” in any dress that was not of American origin.

-- Ron Chernow, “Alexander Hamilton”

The Boston Marathon Bombers

Sometimes you wake up in the morning and you learn that all hell has broken loose.



ONTD

Heather Locklear

It's already been proven that Heather Locklear is doing a bang-up job aging with grace. (Seriously, she looks the same age as her 15-year-old daughter.) So when the 51-year-old actress offered up the secret to her great skin, we listened closely... and were subsequently grossed out.

In an on-camera conversation with TMZ reporters, she was asked if she had any recommendations for anti-aging skincare products. Her reply? "You just put semen on your face."

-- ONTD

*chuckling* Yeah, and I am sure men would love to help anyway they can.

I like one ONTDer's response: "If that was true I'd look like a 12 year old right now."

Another of these weekends

I didn't think that I was ever going to get another of these weekends again. Pop has left for Ms. Walker's. I appreciate the break. It helps a lot.

The Savage God

“Robert Lowell once remarked that if there were some little switch in the arm which one could press in order to die immediately and without pain, then everyone would sooner or later commit suicide.”

-- A. Alvarez, “The Savage God”

Alvarez goes on to note that in the modern age, suicide has become about that easy and convenient.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Modern drugs and domestic gas have changed all that [i.e. the reliance on violent means to kill oneself, such as hanging, drowning, shooting, cutting, jumping]. Not only have they made suicide more or less painless, they have also made it seem magical. A man who takes a knife and slices deliberately across his throat is murdering himself. But when someone lies down in front of an unlit gas oven or swallows sleeping pills, he seems not so much to be dying as merely seeking oblivion for a while.

-- A. Alvarez

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

One would think this also means that suicide is that much more of a temptation and perhaps that much more of an issue.

the brevity and the beauty

Last night, I was printing out another batch of quotes from my show blog, and I fell in love with the brevity and the beauty. Printed out in the large font-size of 18, and it still only takes up a small part of the page. If you keep the prose sharp, you don’t really need to mess with blank verse or trying to poeticize it. It can run as long as a 150 words, I think. We’re not talking about Twitter tweets, 140 characters only. 100 words is certainly not a problem. 125 might be a good limit. Around there. So long as it fits easily on one page in large 18-point font. Something complete and meaningful.

I even felt the temptation to start my Three Journal over again with this rule in mind. I overcame it, but I may keep it in mind as I go on with that project. It is not like my thoughts drop from me in such large batches. The main reason my posts run longer than I would like is because much of it is a patchwork of cute-and-paste quotes. I don’t think my Three Journal was supposed to be like that; it was supposed to be my writing journal, but has now become my ‘best of’ journal.

Maybe I should start a Four Journal? Believe me, I think that’s crazy. But I do ‘crazy’ sometimes. Still, I prefer to try to bend my Three Journal back to my original intentions, keeping the rule of well-crafted brevity in mind.

The Boston Marathon Bomber

We may get some of the inside scoop on the Boston bombing. After a prime-time-TV standoff, the police have the second suspect in custody alive - wounded but alive. Dzokhar Tsarnaev. Yeah, a Muslim, with a spirit of jihad, though it seems to be an independent lark, not an al-Qaida operation. Someone who wasn't finding happiness in the West, a college-age kid. Frustration and anger that found a dark purpose.

Daily Fun

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