opened up

washington state, originally uploaded by McBeth.

We all experience many freakish and unexpected events - you have to be open to suffering a little. The philosopher Schopenhauer talked about how out of the randomness, there is an apparent intention in the fate of an individual that can be glimpsed later on. When you are an old guy, you can look back, and maybe this rambling life has some through-line. Others can see it better sometimes. But when you glimpse it yourself, you see it more clearly than anyone.

-- Viggo Mortensen

inflate your life raft

persimmon's art, originally uploaded by McBeth.

I don't understand people who like to work and talk about it like it was some sort of goddamn duty. Doing nothing feels like floating on warm water to me. Delightful, perfect.

-- Ava Gardner

Mister Owl, how many licks does it take?

three tomatoes, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Teach this triple truth to all: A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity.

-- Buddha

wide open

blue sky barney, originally uploaded by McBeth.

The greatest religious problem today is how to be both a mystic and a militant; in other words how to combine the search for an expansion of inner awareness with effective social action, and how to feel one's true identity in both.

-- Ursula K Leguin

dispersion

dolly, originally uploaded by McBeth.

What is the feeling when you're driving away from people, and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? -it's the too huge world vaulting us, and it's good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.

-- Jack Kerouac

risk assessment

recycle h2o, originally uploaded by McBeth.

The best we can do is size up the chances, calculate the risks involved, estimate our ability to deal with them, and then make our plans with confidence.

-- Henry Ford

sunday dinner

sunday dinner, originally uploaded by McBeth.

It was the Law of the Sea, they said. Civilization ends at the waterline. Beyond that, we all enter the food chain, and not always right at the top.

-- Hunter S. Thompson

faraway

hornby island twilight, originally uploaded by McBeth.

How I wish that somewhere there existed an island for those who are wise and of good will.

-- Albert Einstein

this is how it is done

fly away, originally uploaded by McBeth.

The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.

-- Douglas Adams

consolation

watch over, originally uploaded by McBeth.

In our sad condition, our only consolation is the expectancy of another life. Here below all is incomprehensible.

-- Martin Luther

depths

ice water, originally uploaded by McBeth.

The mind is like an iceberg, it floats with one-seventh of its bulk above water.

-- Sigmund Freud

locker up

pink padlock, originally uploaded by McBeth.

I have six locks on my door all in a row. When I go out, I lock every other one. I figure no matter how long somebody stands there picking the locks, they are always locking three.

-- Elayne Boosler

domesticum

domesticum, originally uploaded by McBeth.

I have no hesitation in saying that although the American woman never leaves her domestic sphere and is in some respects very dependent within it, nowhere does she enjoy a higher station. And if anyone asks me what I think the chief cause of the extraordinary prosperity and growing power of this nation, I should answer that it is due to the superiority of their women.

-- Alexis de Tocqueville

reflection

reflection, originally uploaded by McBeth.

For light I go directly to the Source of light, not to any of the reflections.

-- Peace Pilgrim

Age does not protect you from love.  But love, to some extent, protects you from age.

-- Jeanne Moreau

friendly fields

jo , originally uploaded by McBeth.

As she has planted, so does she harvest; such is the field of karma.


-- Sri Guru Granth Sahib

go knit

knit, originally uploaded by McBeth.

If some sissy chick tried to kick my ass I would say hey, missy, go knit me a sweater before I slap you in the face!

-- Eric Cartman

rest your head for just five minutes

weep, originally uploaded by McBeth.

I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?

-- Ernest Hemingway

cinnamon toast

holiday, originally uploaded by McBeth.

This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it.

-- Dorothy Parker

rebel with cause

give me a sign, originally uploaded by McBeth.

If you hate your parents, the man or the establishment, don't show them up by getting wasted and wrapping your car around a tree. If you really want to rebel against your parents: outearn them, outlive them, and know more than they do.

-- Henry Rollins

the lookout

carmel corn, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Every man I meet wants to protect me. I can't figure out what from.

-- Mae West

commitment

Grandpa's ring , originally uploaded by McBeth.

Let the wife make the husband glad to come home, and let him make her sorry to see him leave.

-- Martin Luther

just sit down

ring of flowers, originally uploaded by McBeth.

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

-- Ernest Hemingway

pigs, primarily

pigs, primarily, originally uploaded by McBeth.

The defense budget is more than a piggy bank for people who want to get busy beating swords into pork barrels.

-- George Bush, Sr.

in dignity

memorial, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Each of us, face to face with other men, is clothed with some sort of dignity, but we know only too well all the unspeakable things that go on in the heart.

-- Luigi Pierandello

eventually

'49 desoto, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant with the weak and the wrong. Sometime in your life you will have been all of these.

-- Robert H. Stoddard

waiting for what's next

woman at bus stop, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Whether you call my heart affectionate, or you call it womanish: I confess, that to my misfortune, it is soft.

-- Ovid

holiday onslaught

merry christmas, retail style, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Once again, we come to the Holiday Season, a deeply religious time that each of us observes, in his own way, by going to the mall of his choice.

-- David Barry

uno dos tres

analogous, originally uploaded by McBeth.

We can comprehend every single life phenomenon, as if the past, the present, and the future together with a superordinate, guiding idea were present in it in traces.

-- Alfred Adler

dig your well

badger liquor shop, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Thatch your roof before rainy weather; dig your well before you become parched with thirst.

-- Chinese Proverb

streeting

blue cap @ yellow jersey, originally uploaded by McBeth.

If you had a friend who was a tightrope walker, and you were walking down a sidewalk, and he fell, that would be completely unacceptable...

-- Mitch Hedberg

fabulous yellow

once we went to a mall, originally uploaded by McBeth.

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"

-- Jack Kerouac

immoovable

she says she wants a word with you, originally uploaded by McBeth.

To my mind, the only possible pet is a cow. Cows love you. . . . They will listen to your problems and never ask a thing in return. They will be your friends forever. And when you get tired of them, you can kill and eat them. Perfect.

-- Bill Bryson

walkabout

walking with the girls at Indian Lake, originally uploaded by McBeth.

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.

-- Buddha

where'd it go?

surprise part II: here i am, originally uploaded by McBeth.

You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it.

-- Robin Williams

four parts

four shots, originally uploaded by McBeth.

BRANDY, n. A cordial composed of one part thunder-and-lightning, one part remorse, two parts bloody murder, one part death-hell-and-the- grave and four parts clarified Satan. Dose, a headful all the time. Brandy is said by Dr. Johnson to be the drink of heroes. Only a hero will venture to drink it.

-- Ambrose Bierce

spectral evidence

holy wisdom monastary, originally uploaded by McBeth.

We live under continual threat of two equally fearful, but seemingly opposed, destinies: unremitting banality and inconceivable terror. It is fantasy, served out in large rations by the popular arts, which allows most people to cope with these twin specters.

-- Susan Sontag

seasonal shades

autumn in wisconsin, originally uploaded by McBeth.

I'm not an old, experienced hand at politics. But I am now seasoned enough to have learned that the hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning.

-- Adlai E. Stevenson

that new lens smell

new eyes, originally uploaded by McBeth.

I'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart.

-- e.e. cummings

companionship

over the hill, originally uploaded by McBeth.

The need for devotion to something outside ourselves is even more profound than the need for companionship. If we are not to go to pieces or wither away, we must have some purpose in life; for no man can live for himself alone.

-- Ross Parmenter

note to self

Yashica-C, originally uploaded by McBeth.

To fail is a natural consequence of trying, To succeed takes time and prolonged effort in the face of unfriendly odds. To think it will be any other way, no matter what you do, is to invite yourself to be hurt and to limit your enthusiasm for trying.

-- David Viscott

as mud

call for mister kent, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.

-- Dan Quayle

Meal Ready to Eat

buick, originally uploaded by McBeth.

I began to ration my writing, for fear I would dream through life as my father had done. I was afraid I had inherited a poisoned gene from him, a vocation without a gift.

-- Mavis Gallant

cost of living

no longer registers, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Nothing is more likely to destroy a species or a nation than a determination to survive at all costs.

-- C.S. Lewis

three strings, electrified

Gallery Night music, Boho style, originally uploaded by McBeth.

We all like people who do things, even if we only see their faces on a cigar-box lid.

-- Willa Sibert Cather

little bird

red wings, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Self-revelation is a cruel process. The real picture, the real you never emerges. Looking for it is as bewildering as trying to know how you really look. Ten different mirrors show you ten different faces.

-- Shashi Deshpande

swizzle glub

swizzlers, originally uploaded by McBeth.

If one synchronized swimmer drowns, do all the rest have to drown too?

-- Stephen Wright

instinctual appeal

what's that I smell?, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Every man wants a woman to appeal to his better side, his nobler instincts and his higher nature - and another woman to help him forget them.

-- Helen Rowland

maintaining order

alphabet chart, originally uploaded by McBeth.

An encyclopedia is a system for collecting dust in alphabetical order.

-- Mike Barfield

stirring up trouble

today's beverage brought to you courtesy of the letter Q, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Errors to be dangerous must have a great deal of truth mingled with them. It is only from this alliance that they can ever obtain an extensive circulation.

-- Sydney Smith