Law of the Land

"We in Missouri have a unique advantage over other firms. We breathe nice clean air, we can have a place in country and hunt and fish if we want to. We are uniquely situated to provide good legal service at a good rate." -quote from my best lawyers piece that ran in this month's Missouri Life magazine.

Bad News

"I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it." -Thomas Jefferson. Maybe the funny pages didn't exist back then?

Pen to Paper

"So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say. But to sacrifice a hair of the head of your vision, a shade of its colour, in deference to some Headmaster with a silver pot in his hand or to some professor with a measuring-rod up his sleeve, is the most abject treachery." -Virginia Woolf.

But what if you have to write a thesis?!

Hello Ladies

"There are lipsticks and powder puffs and false eyelashes and bride's magazines in Newcomb Hall, and there are painted fingernails waving in the faces of professors." -a line from the 1970 Corks & Curls about the admission of women to UVA. Quoted in my Rotunda exhibit and requoted in yesterday's Washington Post article.

Just Do It

Corks & Curls: Corked

"The books are a valuable gauge of the University’s views and values throughout history." -a quote from yours truly in a Hook article regarding the termination of the Corks & Curls. Read it here. So sad. Check out the Cavalier Daily story as well (hopefully by the time this post goes live, the paper will have fixed the misspelling of my name). Photos are from my Rotunda exhibition, 116 Years of Corks & Curls.

Sale

From the Dec. 13, 1917 issue of the Texas Posten. Gotta include the ladies.

Fancy Fingers

"When in doubt, pinky out." -silly theme of last night's wine dinner at Emmett's in Fayette.

Keep In Touch

"Letter-writing is the only device for combining solitude with good company." -Lord Byron

Stay Clean

"He that flings dirt at another dirtieth himself most." -Thomas Fuller

Poof (or Proof?)

"Our mythologies have a long radition of magic words that provide insight and godlike powers. To this day, children still shout 'abracadabra' in hopes of creating something out of nothing. Of course, we've all forgotten that this word is not a toy; it has roots in ancient Aramaic mysticism - Avrah KaDabra - meaning 'I create as I speak.'" -a exerpt from The Lost Symbol (a good read if you're familiar with the D.C. area!).

Back At It

"A professor is someone who talks in someone else's sleep." -W.H. Auden.

First week of the last semester...

All Out

"Cooking is like love: it should be entered into with abandon, or not at all." -Harriet Van Horne, newspaper columnist and film critic

MLK Jr. Day

"Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true." -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

An Engaging Question

"Is there a rock under those Mizuno gloves?" -Hugh inquires about my ring before the Runners' Choice 10k/20k.

Fast Forward

"Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing." -19th century psychologist and philosopher William James, who also said: "The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook."

Instant Knowledge

"Wikipedia is just an incredible thing. It is fact-encirclingly huge, and it is idiosyncratic, careful, messy, funny, shocking, and full of simmering controversies — and it is free, and it is fast. In a few seconds you can look up, for instance, "Diogenes of Sinope," or "turnip," or "Crazy Eddie," or "quadratic formula," and you will have knowledge you did not have before. It is like some vast aerial city with people walking briskly to and fro on catwalks, carrying picnic baskets full of nutritious snacks." -Nicholson Baker, in his Guardian article titled "How I fell in love with Wikipedia."

How to Be a Writer

"First, try to be something, anything, else. A movie star/astronaut. A movie star/ missionary. A movie star/kindergarten teacher. President of the World. Fail miserably. It is best if you fail at an early age — say, 14. Early, critical disillusionment is necessary so that at 15 you can write long haiku sequences about thwarted desire." -Lorrie Moore, 1985; part of her Self Help book.

Gifted

"You have been named as Matt's joint Wedding Registry partner." -e-mail from Amazon Wedding. I guess that's one way to put it.

Good Livin'

NYE Puppy

In Haight Ashbury

12 More Hours?

"Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves." -Albert Einstein

Snowshoeing Today

“I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.” -Thoreau

Winnemucca, Nevada

I was totin' my pack along the long dusty Winnemucca road, When along came a semi with a high an' canvas-covered load. "If you're goin' to Winnemucca, Mack, with me you can ride." And so I climbed into the cab and then I settled down inside. He asked me if I'd seen a road with so much dust and sand. And I said, "Listen, I've traveled every road in this here land!"
-Johnny Cash

Winnemucca = middle of nowhere.

"The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page." -St. Augustine

The Shoe Guy

"He chronicles the adventures of runners and the shoes they love with a mixture of humor and sarcasm, while throwing in the occasional tidbit of solid information about how running shoes actually work. He owns and manages Fleet Feet Sports, a running specialty store in Davis, California, which is the source of much of his running shoe lore." -Running Times bio of J.D. Denton, whom we saw at Fleet Feet yesterday. Should have asked him for a job.

Road Trip Continues

"The journey is the reward." -Tao saying

Best Pizza Ever

Zachary's, in Oakland, Ca.

Don't Fall

Sign on the Golden Gate Bridge.

Hey Hey USA

"These people are from Missouri, they're more American than any of us." -some kid at the New Year's party Matt and I attended. Here's to living in the Midwest.

Happy New Year

"For last year's words belong to last year's language And next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning." -T.S. Eliot

Here's to many new beginnings in 2010 :)