Love and footsteps …

Saturday, February 1, 2025. It's the Satyr's day . . . a downright balmy weekend is settling over TulseyTown. Despite cold mornings, afternoons are forecasted to be in the mid to upper 60's with moderate to strong Southerlies. Nice day for a walk to the Heron Pond.

The first part of the first edition of The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) was published on this date in 1884.

And, Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir was sworn in on this day in 2009 as Iceland's Prime Minister. She is the first woman PM in Iceland, and the first openly LGBTQ to hold such a post in the world.

Today is the birth date of Influential poet and novelist, Langston Hughes. A major creator of the “Harlem Renaissance” was born in 1902 Joplin, Missouri – slightly more than a stone's throw from my front porch.

Also, today is the birth date of Galway Kinnell. The poet was born in 1927 Providence, Rhode Island. He, along with Richard Brautigan, taught me of the unity of art and science. He once said that he wrote poems that didn't require a college degree to understand.

"After Making Love We Hear Footsteps" by Galway Kinnell introduced by Garrison Keillor.

Against the stream . . .

Friday, January 31, 2025 It's Freya's (Frigg's) day . . . a mid-Winter warming trend is settling on TulseyTown for the next several days.

Today is the birth date of Thomas Merton. The Trappist monk, writer, theologian, mystic, poet, social activist and scholar of comparative religion was born in 1915 Prades, France.

Another new report: Offshore wind farms could cause significant ecosystem, economic and human health risks.

Trump may find that he is swimming against the stream. Whether he recognizes it, is another matter – Joyce Vance, in Civil Discourse.

There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by [this] multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender ...to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence [and have our work for peace neutralized]....Nothing has ever been said about God that hasn't already been said better by the wind in the pine trees. - Thomas Merton,  Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander.

Lettuce detectives …

Thursday, January 30, 2025 … It's Thor's day … overnight rains were slowly being replaced by fog as I walked to the Mailbox this morning here in TulseyTown. And, as usual, the first bit of flotsam was political . . .

It is possible Nixon’s system of polarization is reaching the end of its rope. How we got from there to here. – Heather Cox Richardson, in Letters From An American.

As to the jetsam:

Today in 1948, Gandhi was assassinated.

And it is the birthday of the 32nd president of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, born in 1882 Hyde Park, New York.

Two UK born actors share today's birth date. Christian Bale turns 51 born in 1974, Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, Wales; and Vanessa Redgrave was born in 1937, London, England).

And, not least:

Today is the birth date of the poet and novelist Richard Brautigan. Born in 1935 Tacoma, Washington, he turned my writing life's direction completely around with the novellas Trout Fishing in America, and a small collection of short – and I mean short – stories titled “The Revenge of the Lawn.”

Private Eye Lettuce

Three crates of Private Eye Lettuce,

the name and drawing of a detective

with magnifying glass on the sides

of the crates of lettuce,

form a great cross in man’s imagination

and his desire to name

the objects of this world.

I think I’ll call this place Golgotha

and have some salad for dinner.

– Richard Brautigan, “Private Eye Lettuce” from The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster. Houghton Mifflin Company. 1968.