Eponyms

Read the article on NPR.

Montana Manners

"Pleasure ridin' with you, ma'am." -random cowboy on the bus back to Los Alamos who tipped his hat to me when we arrived at his stop. Funny thing was, I hadn't spoken to him at all!

Words of Wisdom

"I've long since learned that no difference in viewpoint should ever be allowed to cause the least break in love. Indeed, it cannot, if it's real love...relationships can be kept intact without compromising one's own beliefs ... there's only one way to give advice to the young: give it, and then be perfectly unconcerned as to whether they take it or not." - Christy, which I finally re-read after being obsessed with the book and TV series 17 years ago...

Eat Here

Photos from Whole Foods' Eat Real Festival

Get Going

Happy Monday!

Getting Dirty

"You should be willing to face whatever the race director, the course, or Mother Nature throws your way." -from the president of the U.S. Adventure Racing Association. Read more about crazy races at OutsideOnline.com.

Fresh Air

Terry Gross: You studied journalism in college. What did you expect to become?

Brad Pitt: I wasn't really sure. I was just investigating for myself -- they have one of the best j-schools in the country.

Terry Gross: This is, where?

Brad Pitt: University of Missouri

Too bad he dropped out two weeks short of graduation. Read more here.

Black & Gold

well, it's not as good as the original, but it's still cute:

Brilliant

"The Internet has dramatically speeded up linguistic crosspollination among national or regional forms of English." -from Slate, about how Britishisms are creeping into American English.

Roman Wisdom

"There is no master plan, no divine architect, no intelligent design. All things, including the species to which you belong, have evolved over vast stretches of time. The evolution is random, though in the case of living organisms, it involves a principle of natural selection. That is, species that are suited to survive and to reproduce successfully, endure, at least for a time; those that are not so well suited, die off quickly. But nothing -- from our own species, to the planet on which we live, to the sun that lights our day -- lasts forever." -Lucretius. Great article/audio about his work on NPR.org.

Buttered Up

Saw these guys at Roots 'n Blues ...

Writer's World

"Create your own community, and forget about pedigrees and prizes. If the mainstream shifts to accommodate you -- as it has done to accommodate so many non-mainstream communities of writers -- then you at least arrived there on your own terms." -poet Brian Henry

Broadway Bambi

Thanks to Shawn for this clip of a deer galloping down Broadway in downtown Columbia, Mo. In his words, "that's crazier'n hell."

Dear One

Hungover

"One house we lived in had drunk squirrels sleeping it off in the mulberry tree right outside the kitchen window -- they had eaten fermenting mulberries." -preview of my upcoming bizarre wildlife encounter story (in the November issue of Inside Columbia)

Close to Home

Personal

"Before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience." -Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird

Here and Now

"What I call innocence is the spirit's unself-conscious state at any moment of pure devotion to any object. It is at once a receptiveness and total concentration." -Annie Dillard

Thanks to Shane Epping for the HOA photo.

The Little Things

"There were times over the years when life was not easy, but if you're working a few hours a day and you've got a good book to read, and you can go outside to the beach and dig for clams, you're okay." -Mary Oliver

Trail Side

Winners

"I have idea: let's make Oreo sandwich." -one of the Roots 'n Blues 10k top-finishers agrees to pose for a post-race photo.

News Makers

"One of the things that the Internet makes possible is for the people who make the news to create their own journalism...whether it's corporations or trade associations or interest groups. We live in a world of spin and marketing." -interesting read on NPR about the changing field of journalism. Everyone is an editor.

Go Figure

Walked into the grocery store in Columbia, Missouri and the first thing I see are New Mexico chiles "Grown with Tradition."

Marathon Man

"It's a people's marathon." -our wonderful Heart of America race director Joe Duncan. He's 77 years old and has been organizing HOA for 41 years. Read the Missourian article here.

Seasons

"I went to sleep in the summer. I dreamed of rain. In the morning the fields were wet, and it was autumn." -Linda Pastan. Must be in Missouri.

Great Day

"A mighty day or luminous age was flinging wide its doors as world on world revealed their wonders in the rapturous morning, always new, beginning as the now took hold." -Robert Morgan.

Up bright and early for the Heart of America marathon today!

Law Enforcement

"Little did they know...they were going to bump into the wrong Superman -- a world-class runner... It's like he flew out of the sky. He was just missing his cape." -Santa Fe New Mexican article about an elite marathoner who ran down a purse-thief.

Dangerous Dessert

"Coffee break brought on more than a caffeine buzz for some Victoria office workers who unwittingly nibbled marijuana-laden brownies this week." -intro of a Vancouver Sun article. The more disturbing part of this story is that the brownies were a year old.

Tough Words

September

"...the spirit of autumn takes a first stealing flight, like a spy, through the ripening country-side, and, with feigned sympathy for those who droop with August heat, puts her cool cloak of bracing air about leaf and flower and human shoulders." -Sarah Orne Jewett