One Who Allows Art

Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument.  The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purpose through him.

-- Carl Gustav Jung (1875 - 1961), Swiss psychiatrist and founder of analytical psychology, from his essay "Psychology and Literature" (1930)

He Knows Too Much

The dilemma of the critic has always been that if he knows enough to speak with authority, he knows too much to speak with detachment.

-- Raymond Thornton Chandler (1888 - 1959), American novelist and screenwriter, "A Qualified Farewell" (essay, early 1950's), published in The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler (1976)

At Play Or Leisure

Man works when he is partially involved.  When he is totally involved he is at play or leisure.

-- Marshall McLuhan (1911 - 1980), Canadian philosopher, futurist, and communications theorist, "The Agenbite of Outwit" (1998)

Basic Truths

Basic truths cannot change and once a man of insight expresses one of them it is never necessary, no matter how much the world changes, to reformulate them.  This is immutable, true everywhere, throughout all time, for all men and all nations.

-- Robert A. Heinlein (1907 - 1988), popular and influential author of science fiction, Starship Troopers (1959)

Worth The Struggle

To have striven, to have made the effort, to have been true to certain ideals -- this alone is worth the struggle.

-- Sir William Osler, 1st Baronet (1849 - 1919), Canadian physician, Sir William Osler : Aphorisms (1950) p. 89, aphorism 178

The Moment

A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.

-- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900 - 1944), French writer, poet, and aviator, Pilote de Guerre (1942) (translated into English as Flight to Arras)

Happy Birthday, Mel Brooks

Yesterday, in honor of Mel Brooks's (28 June 1926 -) 100th birthday, the local glorious old theater showed the movie "Young Frankenstein" (1974).  Tickets were just $7 and I was happy to attend.

There was a good crowd at the Virginia Theatre, though it wasn't packed.  Before the show, a live (adjective required?) organist played the Virginia’s historic two manual, eight rank Wurlitzer Hope-Jones orchestral pipe organ, installed during the original 1921 construction, to entertain us while we waited.  The organist sits at a console mounted on a podium in the orchestra pit that can be raised to stage height, as it was Sunday, and lowered again, as it was while the organist played his last tune of the day.

The crowd applauded the organist, and the beginning and end of the movie.  Mel Brooks would be happy to know that there was laughter in the theater, and audience members saying they had seen the movie in this theater in its original release. 

First Generation

This past Saturday we held our very first Gumdo (Korean sword) Black belt test at HMD Academy.  Five students successfully tested for Black belt in Gumdo, demonstrating 12 different cuts, special sword handling sequences, 8 forms (like poomsae or kata), and offensive and defensive partner work. 

These students signed up when we started our Gumdo program in March 2024.  All five benefited from their Taekwondo experience where they were already Black belts or Black belt candidates.  Three of the five were my students who train in Monticello, including David, previously mentioned here as a Taekwondo student and currently 2nd degree Black belt in Taekwondo.

These students will continue to advance their training.  We instructors are very proud of their accomplishments.  Haidong!

What Is Left Behind

A memory is what is left behind when something happens and does not completely unhappen.

-- Edward de Bono (1933 - 2021), British physician, author, inventor, and consultant, The Mechanism of Mind (1969), Ch. 5

A Comedy In Long-shot

Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.

-- Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE (1889 - 1977), British comedic actor and director, as quoted in his obituary in The Guardian (28 December 1977)

A Precursor

I believe that faith is a precursor of all our ideas.  Without faith, there never could have evolved hypothesis, theory, science or mathematics.  I believe that faith is an extension of the mind.  It is the key that negates the impossible.  To deny faith is to refute oneself and the spirit that generates all our creative forces.  My faith is in the unknown, in all that we do not understand by reason; I believe that what is beyond our comprehension is a simple fact in other dimensions, and that in the realm of the unknown there is an infinite power for good.

-- Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE (1889 - 1977), British comedic actor and director, My Autobiography (1964), p. 291

A Vast Bazaar

Literature is a vast bazaar where customers come to purchase everything except mirrors.

-- James Branch Cabell (1879 - 1958), American author of satirical fantasy works, The Certain Hour (1916) "Auctorial Induction"

A Tautology

A good poem is a tautology.  It expands one word by adding a number which clarify it, thus making a new word which has never before been spoken.  The seed-word is always so ordinary that hardly anyone perceives it.  Classical odes grow from "and" or "because", romantic lyrics from "but" or "if".  Immature verses expand a personal pronoun ad nauseam, the greatest works bring glory to a common verb.

-- Alasdair James Gray (1934 - 2019), award-winning Scottish writer and artist, Unlikely Stories, Mostly (1983) "Prometheus", pp. 208-9

Eccentric Enough

People who are eccentric enough to be quite seriously virtuous understand each other everywhere, discover each other easily, and form a silent opposition to the ruling immorality that happens to pass for morality.

-- Friedrich Schlegel (1772 - 1829), German poet, critic, and scholar, The Athenaeum Fragments (1798 - 1800) or Aphorisms from the Athenaeum (German Athenäums-fragmente), collection of aphorisms published by Schlegel, #414

The Most Divine

Of all God's gifts to the sight of man, colour is the holiest, the most divine, the most solemn.

-- John Ruskin (1819 - 1900), English author, poet, and painter, The Stones of Venice (1853) Volume II, chapter V, section 30

Struck By Lightning

A good poet is someone who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be struck by lightning five or six times; a dozen or two dozen times and he is great.

-- Randall Jarrell (1914 - 1965), American poet, novelist, critic, and essayist, Poetry and the Age (1953) "Reflections on Wallace Stevens", p. 134; conclusion

Not A Science

Die Politik ist keine Wissenschaft, wie viele der Herren Proffessoren sich einbilden, sondern eine Kunst (Politics is not a science, as the professors are apt to suppose.  It is an art).

-- Prince Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg (1815 - 1898), German aristocrat and statesman, expression in the Reichstag (1884), as quoted in The Quote Verifier : Who Said What, Where, and When (2006) by Ralph Keyes

RIP Rob Reiner

As you get older, all those dumb clichés, they're all true.  You only have a certain amount of time left, and you should only spend it doing the things that you want to do.

-- Robert Norman Reiner (6 March 1947 - 14 December 2025), American film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and political activist, "Rob Reiner on his favorite films, and why he changed the ending of When Harry Met Sally…" by Gwen Ihnat, A.V. Club (3 September 2016)

Three Great Questions

There are three great questions which in life we have over and over again to answer.  Is it right or wrong?  Is it true or false?  Is it beautiful or ugly?  Our education ought to help us to answer these questions.

-- John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury, PC (1834 - 1913), English banker, politician, naturalist and archaeologist, The Use of Life (1894), ch. VI: National Education

Sought For And Attended To

Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.

-- Abigail Adams (1744-1818), wife of John Adams, second President of the United States, in a letter to John Quincy Adams (8 May 1780)