Dating Creation. . .

It's Tew's day ahead of a forecasted week of rain in TulseyTown . . . in the mailbox this morning:

Today is the anniversary that the stock market crash in 1929. The “great crash” brought about a ten year depression impacting most of the world.

The poet who said: "I'm not very good at praying, but what I experience when I'm writing a poem is close to prayer" – Denise Levertov – was born on today's date in 1923 Ilford, England.

Today is the 119th anniversary of Moss Hart's birth. The playwright was born on this date in 1904 New York City. About his lifetime affair with theatre, Hart said: the theater made possible the art of being somebody else … not a scrawny boy with bad teeth, a funny name … and a mother who was a distant drudge.

Creativity: Part I

With ego’s notion of creation, you have a concept that you want to achieve something, and you try to match your situation with your idea of the actual achievement. You compare the dream and the actual reality. That is not the ultimate creative process but a one-way creation which can wear out. You build a thing and it is finished; your have no further place to go. It is a very limited inspiration. – Chögyam Trungpa

Without real solitude, no serious work is possible. – Pablo Picasso

Carbon Dating

He tried it once

as a last resort,

but most of the women

were a million years old.

– by Billy Collins from Musical Tables: Poems, Random House. 2022

Malicious entanglement

In this The Moon day's mailbox . . . .

Martin Scorsese's latest film “Killers of the Flower Moon” has opened in theatre's across the country. If you haven't yet heard about it, the film is based on David Grann's book by the same title. The book is a nonfiction account of the killing of two dozen or more Osage indians by white greed monsters in Osage County, Oklahoma. The center of the setting of one of the most sinister crimes in American history is a one hour drive from my cottage in TulseyTown.

Speaking of media icons, today is the birth date of Johnny Carson. The late night host of The Tonight Show – for thirty years – was born on this day in 1925 Corning, Iowa.

What is it “to be a person” these days?

Entanglement

. . . No one can explain it.
The strange charm between border collie and sheep,
leaf and wind, the two distant electrons.

. . . On the back of a turtle, at rest on its shell,

a turtle.

Inside that green-painted shell, another, still smaller.

This continues for many turtles,

until finally, too small to see
or to lift up by its curious, preacherly head
a single un-green electron

waits the width of a world for some weightless message
sent into the din of existence for it alone.

. . . Murmur of all that is . . .against all that is not:

You are there. I am here. I remember.

– by Jane Hirshfield, The Beauty. Knopf, 2015

Troublemaking with Bukowski

This Sol's day mailbox was full of ruffled feathers . . .

Whether you track them or not, the year contains between 12 and 13 moon cycles. Around 12 times a year the oceans swell and recede, and your own body, 73% water, also responds tidally. As recently as 2,000 years ago, cultures were still oriented towards lunar cycles and cyclical time. ... — Sophie Strand

I do not know the solution to the conflict in Israel and Palestine. But I do know the starting point is to “grieve” their children as our children. It's the only way to break the cycle. – Valarie Kaur

If the notion of love as the only way gives you pause, check out Ms. Kaur's TED talk outlining her vision of a Revolutionary Love. In her words “this is a feminist intervention.” It might be the most worthy 20 minutes you will have spent. No hyperbole.

Troublemaking with Bukowski: Feather ruffling heroes — as birds in coal mines — celebrated by Jessica Elefante.

Best joke of this dark week provided by Garrison:

. . . a Republican was sent to the guillotine to be executed for insurrection and he lay down, blindfolded, and they pulled the rope but the blade wouldn’t drop. They tried again and again, no success, and decided he’d suffered enough and they’d commute the sentence to imprisonment. So they took the blindfold off and the Republican looked up and said, “No. Wait. I see the problem. The blade’s stuck. Give me a pair of pliers and a screwdriver, I can fix it.”