https://pixabay.com/en/beautiful-woman-smiling-3412831/
***
SO LIVE LIKE A WOLF EATS
***
Age replaces youth
Wrinkles appear and breasts droop
Death knocks down the door
***
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***
https://pixabay.com/en/beverage-brewed-calm-cappuccino-3410887/
***
WISH
***
someone, savor me
exactly like she savors
this cup of coffee
***
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Free eBooks by David Bruce (pdfs)
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***
https://pixabay.com/en/polynesia-french-polynesia-tahiti-3021072/
***
BEST PLACE FOR A WRITER
***
A writer’s best place?
Not a place of great beauty
Just a boring wall
***
NOTE: When in a place of great beauty, don’t write; instead, look at the great beauty. If you want to write, put your computer in front of a boring wall.
***
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Free eBooks by David Bruce (pdfs)
https://davidbruceblog.wordpress.com/about-the-blogger/
***
— 2.5 —
Posthumus managed to elude Philario and Iachimo. Alone in another room of Philario’s house, he said to himself, “Is there no way for men to come into existence but women must be half-workers and give birth to men? We are all bastards. That most venerable man whom I called my father was I know not where when I was created — stamped like a coin. Some coiner with his tools — one of them biological and located below his waist — made me a counterfeit. Yet my mother seemed to be the chaste goddess Diana of that time as my wife seemed to be the nonpareil of this time. Oh, I want vengeance, vengeance!
“She restrained me from enjoying my lawful pleasure of her and often begged me to be patient. She begged me with a modesty so rosy that the sweet view of her modesty might well have warmed the god Saturn, who is ancient and cold and melancholy. I thought that she was as chaste as unsunned snow. Oh, all the devils! This sallow-faced Iachimo, in an hour — was it an entire hour? Or less? Or immediately? Perhaps he did not even speak to her, but like a full-acorned boar, a German one, well fed and with huge testicles, cried ‘Oh!’ and mounted her and found no opposition but what he expected should oppose him and what she should from encounter guard.”
Had Posthumus consummated the marriage with Imogen? Perhaps he had lied about seeing Imogen’s mole. After all, Iachimo had made a mistake about the mole’s location. When he had seen the mole, he had said that it was located on her breast, but he had just now told Posthumus that the mole was located under her breast. The opposition that Posthumus thought that Iachimo had expected could have been Imogen’s hymen. Imogen may not have wanted to sleep with Posthumus until after she received her father’s approval of the marriage.
Posthumus continued, “I wish I could find the woman’s part in me! There is no provocation that leads to vice in man, but I state that it comes from the woman’s part. If the vice is lying, it comes from the woman’s part. The same is true of flattering, deceiving, lustful and rank thoughts, revenges, ambitions, covetings, varieties of sexual excesses, disdain, lustful longing, slanders, inconstancy — all faults that may be named, nay, all that Hell knows. Why, they are women’s, in part or all — but rather, all, because even when it comes to vice women are not constant and loyal but are always exchanging one vice, which is only a minute old, for another vice that is not half as old as that.
“I’ll write against women, detest them, and curse them, yet it shows greater skill in a true hate to pray that women have their will. Not even devils can plague them better.”
***
Copyright by Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
***
While in France, William Donaldson bought a pornographic novel and started reading it in public, first taking the precaution of putting a different book jacket on the novel. The book jacket was for a compilation of essays against the A-bomb, including essays by Bertrand Russell, Philip Toynbee, and other intellectuals. Peter Ustinov happened to be walking by, and seeing the book jacket, he asked Mr. Donaldson if he could look at the book. Mr. Donaldson readily gave him permission and handed the book to him. Mr. Ustinov read one filthy paragraph, and then looked at the book jacket. Then he read another filthy paragraph and again looked at the book jacket. Finally, speechless for once in his life, he handed the book to Mr. Donaldson and exited.
When Carl Linnaeus, the father of scientific classification and naming, got his degree as a doctor of medicine, two people wanted him to be a guest living in their home. One person was Dr. Johannes Burman, who needed help writing a book; another was George Clifford, who was often ill and wanted a doctor living in his home. Dr. Burman had asked Dr. Linnaeus first, and so Dr. Linnaeus was living in his home and helping him with his book. One day Dr. Burman visited Mr. Clifford and admired one of Mr. Clifford’s books. Mr. Clifford told Dr. Berman, “I happen to have two copies. I will give you one if you will let me have Linnaeus.” Dr. Burman agreed, and he traded away Dr. Linnaeus for a book.
The ancient city of Alexandria had an excellent and important library composed of papyrus scrolls. Whenever ships entered the harbor, they were searched for books that could be copied and added to the library. King Ptolemy I even gave the city of Athens 15 talents in gold—a HUGE sum of money—as a deposit so he could borrow the city’s collection of plays. The deal was that the gold would be returned after the Alexandrian librarians had copied the manuscripts and safely returned them. However, King Ptolemy I decided to keep the original manuscripts and gave the city of Athens the copies, thus forfeiting the 15 talents in gold.
When children’s book author Barbara Park—creator of Junie B. Jones—was in high school, her mother worked as a secretary in Barbara’s high school library. This worked in Barbara’s favor one day when she realized that she had forgotten to read a book she had to write a report about. Barbara went to the high school librarian and asked for help. Since the librarian knew both Barbara and Barbara’s mother, the librarian gave Barbara enough information about the book that Barbara was able to write a book report that got a passing grade.
Independent bookstore owner (and essayist) Paul Constant is aware of this fact: “Books tend to attract freaks.” He is aware of repulsive freaks, as when an old man returned a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf because it was “defective”: the introduction had been written by a Jew. On the other hand, some freaks can be charming. Mr. Constant once witnessed a young woman on a bus who was so engrossed in reading Dostoevsky’s The Idiot that she didn’t even notice when right in front of her a fistfight started.
Jane Cummings and George Clarke lived in the house of the parents of poet E.E. Cummings; they were E.E.’s aunt and uncle. Frequently, Jane would read aloud novels such as Treasure Island or The Old Curiosity Shop to the family in the evening. One volume about the Tower of London, where important political prisoners were imprisoned—and sometimes tortured, murdered, or executed—was especially popular with George. After they had eaten dinner, he would request, “Jane, let’s have some ruddy gore!”
Kyle Zimmer is the president of First Book, an organization that gives books to young children who could not otherwise be able to own books. Many of the children are very appreciative of the books they receive. One young child bounced around from one homeless shelter to another, but the one possession that the child fought to keep was a book he had been given by First Book. In addition, Mr. Zimmer once gave a book to a child who smiled, then said, “This is my big chance!”
Ursula K. Le Guin had heard about Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, but she resisted reading it because of what she regarded as the Saturday Review’s “fulsome” reviews of the series of novels. Finally, she took out The Fellowship of the Ring from the Emory University library. She started reading it, and the next day she hurried back to the library, “in terrible fear” that the other volumes of the trilogy had been checked out. They hadn’t, and she read constantly for the next few days.
When she was a 16-year-old teenager growing up in New Jersey, rocker Patty Smith craved poetry. A bus depot she knew about had a collection of used books—mostly pulp fiction. However, among the dross was a volume of poems by Rimbaud titled Illuminations. Lacking money, she stole the book—then replaced that volume with a book she owned but didn’t want. Ms. Smith says about the Rimbaud book, “I was never sorry that I nicked it.”
A rabbi in Poland once wrote a little book, although many other rabbis wrote big books. Asked why his book was so little, the rabbi explained that the people he served worked hard, long hours, and they were tired at the end of the day. If he had written a big book, many people would read a page or two, then go to sleep. But since he had written a little book of distilled wisdom, the people were much more likely to actually read all of it.
Like so many of us, Brazilian author Paulo Coelho owned too many books. He put them on shelves, and when he returned home one day, he discovered that the shelves had collapsed. Reflecting that if he had been home he might have crushed to death by the books and shelves, he decided to greatly reduce the number of books he owned—to 400, which he says is still a high number if he intends to reread all those books.
***
Copyright by Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
***
MY father who owned the wagon-shop
And grew rich shoeing horses
Sent me to the University of Montreal.
I learned nothing and returned home,
Roaming the fields with Bert Kessler,
Hunting quail and snipe.
At Thompson’s Lake the trigger of my gun
Caught in the side of the boat
And a great hole was shot through my heart.
Over me a fond father erected this marble shaft,
On which stands the figure of a woman
Carved by an Italian artist.
They say the ashes of my namesake
Were scattered near the pyramid of Caius Cestius
Somewhere near Rome.
42
The Tao gave birth to One.
The One gave birth to Two.
The Two gave birth to Three.
The Three gave birth to all of creation.
All things carry Yin
yet embrace Yang.
They blend their life breaths
in order to produce harmony.
People despise being orphaned, widowed and poor.
But the noble ones take these as their titles.
In losing, much is gained,
and in gaining, much is lost.
What others teach I too will teach:
“The strong and violent will not die a natural death.”
***
Tao Te Ching
By Lao-Tzu
A translation for the public domain by j.h.mcdonald, 1996
www.wright-house.com/religions/taoism/tao-te-ching.html
***
A young Man had been caught in a daring act of theft and had been condemned to be executed for it. He expressed his desire to see his Mother, and to speak with her before he was led to execution, and of course this was granted. When his Mother came to him he said: ‘I want to whisper to you,’ and when she brought her ear near him, he nearly bit it off. All the bystanders were horrified, and asked him what he could mean by such brutal and inhuman conduct. ‘It is to punish her,’ he said. ‘When I was young I began with stealing little things, and brought them home to Mother. Instead of rebuking and punishing me, she laughed and said: ‘It will not be noticed.’ It is because of her that I am here today.’
‘He is right, woman,’ said the Priest; ‘the Lord hath said:
‘Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old he will not depart therefrom.’
***
davidbruceblog #2 