Light.

The squalling cat and the squeaking mouse,

The howling dog by the door of the house,

The bat that lies in bed at noon,

All love to be out by the light of the moon.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Strauss, The Artist's Life, Op 316

Philippe Jordan conducts the Wiener Symphoniker.

For Professor Rilke ...

Power.

As usual, Steve's pointing to wisdom ...

But no human being can be trusted to keep his or her word when he or she has access to power—a power not available to opponents. 

Dr. Frankl would remind us ...

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.

What power is truly eluding you? 

Happy Birthday, Pappy Boyington

Colonel Gregory "Pappy" Boyington was born on this day in 1912.

From Arlington National Cemetery ...

A World War II fighter ace and Medal of Honor recipient, Col. "Pappy" Boyington (1912-1988) shot down a total of 28 Japanese aircraft during his wartime service. Initially in Army ROTC, he joined the Marine Corps in 1935. In August 1941, however, he resigned his Marine commission in order to join the Flying Tigers (1st American Volunteer Group), organized by Gen. Claire Chennault to assist the Chinese Air Force. Boyington rejoined the Marines in 1942 and commanded the "Black Sheep" squadron (Marine Fighting Squadron 214) in the South Pacific. On January 3, 1944, he was shot down, captured and then held in a Japanese prison camp for 20 months. Boyington's 1958 memoir, "Baa Baa Black Sheep," inspired the 1970s television series of the same name. 

Medal of Honor citation:

"For extraordinary heroism and valiant devotion to duty as commanding officer of Marine Fighting Squadron 214 in action against enemy Japanese forces in the Central Solomons area from 12 September 1943 to 3 January 1944. Consistently outnumbered throughout successive hazardous flights over heavily defended hostile territory, Maj. Boyington struck at the enemy with daring and courageous persistence, leading his squadron into combat with devastating results to Japanese shipping, shore installations, and aerial forces. Resolute in his efforts to inflict crippling damage on the enemy, Maj. Boyington led a formation of 24 fighters over Kahili on 17 October and, persistently circling the airdrome where 60 hostile aircraft were grounded, boldly challenged the Japanese to send up planes. Under his brilliant command, our fighters shot down 20 enemy craft in the ensuing action without the loss of a single ship. A superb airman and determined fighter against overwhelming odds, Maj. Boyington personally destroyed 26 of the many Japanese planes shot down by his squadron and, by his forceful leadership, developed the combat readiness in his command which was a distinctive factor in the Allied aerial achievements in this vitally strategic area."

What would Pappy Boyington have thought about blogging?  What about bloggers?

Happy Birthday, Rainer Maria Rilke

If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for to the creator there is no poverty and no poor indifferent place.  Make your ego porous. Will is of little importance, complaining is nothing, fame is nothing. Openness, patience, receptivity, solitude is everything.

Rainer Maria Rilke, born on this day in 1875, from Letters to a Young Poet

What would Rilke have thought about blogging?  What about bloggers?

Happy Birthday, Gilbert Stuart

Stuart, George Washington (unfinished), 1796

Gilbert Stuart was born on this date in 1755.

Ron Chernow, from George Washington ...

As a portraitist, the garrulous Stuart had perfected a technique to penetrate his subjects’ defenses. He would disarm them with a steady stream of personal anec­dotes and irreverent wit, hoping that this glib patter would coax them into self-revelation. In the taciturn George Washington, a man of granite self-control and a stranger to spontaneity, Gilbert Stuart met his match. From boyhood, Washington had struggled to master and conceal his deep emotions. When the wife of the Brit­ish ambassador later told him that his face showed pleasure at his forthcoming departure from the presidency, Washington grew indignant: “You are wrong. My countenance never yet betrayed my feelings!” He tried to govern his tongue as much as his face: “With me it has always been a maxim rather to let my designs ap­pear from my works than by my expressions.”

When Washington swept into his first session with Stuart, the artist was awe­struck by the tall, commanding president. Predictably, the more Stuart tried to pry open his secretive personality, the tighter the president clamped it shut. Stuart’s opening gambit backfired. “Now, sir,” Stuart instructed his sitter, “you must let me forget that you are General Washington and that I am Stuart, the painter.” To which Washington retorted drily that Mr. Stuart need not forget “who he is or who Gen­eral Washington is.”

A master at sizing people up, Washington must have cringed at Stuart’s facile bonhomie, not to mention his drinking, snuff taking, and ceaseless chatter. With Washington, trust had to be earned slowly, and he balked at instant familiarity with people. Instead of opening up with Stuart, he retreated behind his stolid mask. The scourge of artists, Washington knew how to turn himself into an impenetrable monument long before an obelisk arose in his honor in the nation’s capital.

As Washington sought to maintain his defenses, Stuart made the brilliant deci­sion to capture the subtle interplay between his outward calm and his intense hidden emotions, a tension that defined the man. He spied the extraordinary force of per­sonality lurking behind an extremely restrained facade. The mouth might be com­pressed, the parchment skin drawn tight over ungainly dentures, but Washington’s eyes still blazed from his craggy face. In the enduring image that Stuart captured and that ended up on the one-dollar bill—a magnificent statement of Washington’s moral stature and sublime, visionary nature—he also recorded something hard and suspicious in the wary eyes with their penetrating gaze and hooded lids.

With the swift insight of artistic genius, Stuart grew convinced that Washington was not the placid and composed figure he presented to the world. In the words of a mutual acquaintance, Stuart had insisted that “there are features in [Washington’s] face totally different from what he ever observed in that of any other human being; the sockets of the eyes, for instance, are larger than he ever met with before, and the upper part of the nose broader. All his features, [Stuart] observed, were indica­tive of the strongest and most ungovernable passions, and had he been born in the forests, it was his opinion that [Washington] would have been the fiercest man among the savage tribes.” The acquaintance confirmed that Washington’s intimates thought him “by nature a man of fierce and irritable disposition, but that, like Socrates, his judgment and great self-command have always made him appear a man of a different cast in the eyes of the world.

Excellent.

An excellent album …

Wilno.

Big.

I wish lunch could last forever

Make the whole day one big afternoon ...

Happy Birthday, Maria Callas

What is there in life if you do not work? There is only sensation, and there are only a few sensations— you cannot live on them. You can only live on work, by work, through work. How can you live with self-respect if you do not do things as well as lies in you?

Maria Callas, born on this day in 1923

Performing "Una voce poco fa", from Rossini's The Barber of Seville

Noiseless.

Chełmoński, Partridges in the Snow, 1891

THE FIRST SNOWFALL

The snow had begun in the gloaming,

   And busily all the night

Had been heaping field and highway

   With a silence deep and white.

Every pine and fir and hemlock

   Wore ermine too dear for an earl,

And the poorest twig on the elm-tree

   Was ridged inch deep with pearl.

From sheds new-roofed with Carrara

   Came Chanticleer's muffled crow,

The stiff rails were softened to swan's-down,

   And still fluttered down the snow.

I stood and watched by the window

   The noiseless work of the sky,

And the sudden flurries of snow-birds,

   Like brown leaves whirling by ...

James Russell Lowell, from "The First Snowfall"

Bing Crosby, "White Christmas"

Arrives.

Wyeth, Over the Hill, 1953

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,

Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,

Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air

Hides hill and woods, the river, and the heaven,

And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.

The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet

Delated, all friends shut out, the housemates sit

Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed

In a tumultuous privacy of storm.

Come see the north wind's masonry.

Out of an unseen quarry evermore

Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer

Curves his white bastions with projected roof

Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.

Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work

So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he

For number or proportion. Mockingly,

On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;

A swan-like form invests the hiddden thorn;

Fills up the famer's lane from wall to wall,

Maugre the farmer's sighs; and at the gate

A tapering turret overtops the work.

And when his hours are numbered, and the world

Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,

Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art

To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,

Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,

The frolic architecture of the snow.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Alex de Grassi, "Midwestern Snow"

Steadying.

In our house, this evening marks the beginning of Welsh Rarebit season, an ancient and sacred rite.

WELSH RAREBIT

Ingredients

• A knob of butter
• 1 tbsp flour
• 1 tsp Coleman's mustard powder
• ½ tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 c Guinness
• A very long splash of Worcestershire sauce
• 1 lb. mature strong Cheddar, grated (Look for English farmhouse types such as Montgomery's, Keen's, Quicke's, or my favorite, Lincolnshire Poacher)
• 4 pieces of toast, preferably from homemade bread

Method

1. Melt the butter in a pan, stir in the flour, and let this cook together until it smells biscuity but is not browning. 
2. Add the mustard powder and cayenne pepper, stir in the Guinness and Worcestershire sauce, then gently melt in the cheese.
3. When it’s all of one consistency, remove from the heat, pour out into a shallow container and allow to set. Spread on toast thickly and place under the broiler. Eat when bubbling golden brown. 
4. This makes a splendid savoury at the end of your meal, washed down with a glass of Port, or as a steadying snack.

I highly recommend the addition of Nueske's Triple-Thick Butcher Cut bacon.

Repeat as needed.  Recipe courtesy of Fergus Henderson, from The Complete Nose to Tail

Thanks to Grandma Chenoweth.

Excellent.

An excellent album ...

Frank Sinatra, "Mistletoe and Holly"

Rather.

EPIGRAM 

You say their Pictures well Painted be, 

And yet they are Blockheads you all agree, 

Thank God, I never was sent to School 

To be Flogg’d into following the Stile of a Fool. 

The Errors of a Wise Man make your Rule 

Rather than the Perfections of a Fool.

William Blake

License.

Wyeth, N.C., Pirate Treasure, 1911

If, where the rules not far enough extend,

(Since rules were made but to promote their end)

Some lucky licence answer to the full

The intent proposed, that licence is a rule.

Alexander Pope

Sing.

Wyeth, N.C., Christmas Tree, Chadds Ford, 1922

DECEMBER

While snow the window-panes bedim,

The fire curls up a sunny charm,

Where, creaming o'er the pitcher's rim,

The flowering ale is set to warm;

Mirth, full of joy as summer bees,

Sits there, its pleasures to impart,

And children, 'tween their parent's knees,

Sing scraps of carols o'er by heart.

And some, to view the winter weathers,

Climb up the window-seat with glee,

Likening the snow to falling feathers,

In fancy infant ecstasy;

Laughing, with superstitious love,

O'er visions wild that youth supplies,

Of people pulling geese above,

And keeping Christmas in the skies.

As tho' the homestead trees were drest,

In lieu of snow, with dancing leaves,

As tho' the sun-dried martin's nest,

Instead of ickles, hung the eaves,

The children hail the happy day -

As if the snow were April's grass,

And pleas'd, as 'neath the warmth of May,

Sport o'er the water froze as glass.

John Clare

Excellent.

An excellent album ...

Better.

Georges Luneau's documentary on Jim Harrison, Between Dog and Wolf ...

I'm now 55 and I've been doing this for 50 years, in half a century, I've been going into the woods and the thickets since I was a little boy.  After I hurt my eye, I was blinded in my left eye, I think I retreated from the world to the world of thickets.  So I started sleeping outside a lot when was a little boy, usually with my dog, whatever dog, at the same time.  I felt much happier sleeping out in the forest, especially in the summer, obviously.  Perhaps someday I think I will even die splaying out by a fire under the stars, which is a much better way to live perhaps ...

Deliver.

Expert knowledge is limited knowledge: and the unlimited ignorance of the plain man who knows only what hurts is a safer guide, than any vigorous direction of a specialised character. Why should you assume that all except doctors, engineers etc., are drones or worse? Surely outside scientific spheres there are vast regions of human thought. Is not government itself both an art and a science?

To manage men, to explain difficult things to simple people, to reconcile opposite interests, to weigh the evidence of disputing experts, to deal with the clamorous emergency of the hour; are not these things in themselves worth the consideration and labour of a lifetime? If the Ruler is to be an expert in anything he should be an expert in everything; and that is plainly impossible. Wherefore I say from the dominion of all specialists, good Lord deliver us.

Sir Winston Churchill, from a letter to H.G. Wells, 17 November 1901

Churchill, Self-Portrait, 1920

Existence.

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the Eyes of others only a Green thing that stands in the way. Some see Nature all ridicule and deformity, and by these I shall not regulate my proportions; and some scarce see Nature at all. But to the Eyes of the Man of Imagination, Nature is Imagination itself.  What is now proved was once only imagined.  The imagination is not a state: it is the human existence itself.

William Blake

Absorbing.

Armed with a paint-box, one cannot be bored, one cannot be left at a loose end, one cannot "have several days on one's hands." One must not be too ambitious. One cannot aspire to masterpieces. We may content ourselves with a joy ride in a paint box. And, for this, audacity is the only ticket.  Just to paint is great fun. The colors are lovely to look at and delicious to squeeze out. Matching them, however crudely, with what you see is fascinating and absolutely absorbing. 

Sir Winston Churchill, from Painting as a Pastime

One.

Linnell, William Blake, 1861

There is a smile of love,

And there is a smile of deceit;

And there is a smile of smiles,

In which these two smiles meet.

(And there is a frown of hate,

And there is a frown of disdain;

And there is a frown of frowns

Which you strive to forget in vain,

For it sticks in the heart's deep core,

And it sticks in the deep backbone.)

And no smile that ever was smiled,

But only one smile alone--

That betwixt the cradle and grave

It only once smiled can be.

But when it once is smiled

There's an end to all misery.

William Blake

Happy Birthday, Andrea Palladio

Palladio, Study for Baths of Agrippa, 1550

Beauty will result from the form and the correspondence of the whole, with respect to the several parts, of the parts with regard to each other, and of these again to the whole; that the structure may appear an entire and complete body, wherein each member agrees with the other, and all necessary to compose what you intend to form.

Andrea Palladio, born on this date in 1508

PALLADIO: The Architect and His Influence in America ...

Excellent.

An excellent album ...

Kurt has music for the beginning of the Advent season.

Happy Birthday, Mark Twain

We catched fish and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness. It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big, still river, laying on our backs looking up at the stars, and we didn't ever feel like talking loud, and it warn't often that we laughed—only a little kind of a low chuckle. We had mighty good weather as a general thing, and nothing ever happened to us at all—that night, nor the next, nor the next.

Mark Twain, born on this day in 1835, from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Komitas, Armenian Miniatures

Astrig Siranossian, cello, and Levon Avagyan, piano ...

Handy.

Philip Pullman on the importance of desk height, watching birds, and Myriorama cards ...

I get to my desk (in a very small room at the top of the house) at about 10, and fiddle about with the height of the desk and the chair until I’m comfortable. I have a desk that I can raise or lower according to the state of my aching back. Sometimes I stand at it, and sometimes I have it high up to write at, and sometimes a bit lower to type.

The desk is covered by an ancient kilim, because it looks nice, but that’s not a good surface to write on, so I have one of those green safety cutting mats to support the paper I use, which is A4 narrow lined, with two holes. I love the shape of the A paper sizes. It’s the only one of Andrea Palladio’s recommended architectural shapes (the ratios of room length to width, and so on) that contains an irrational number, in this case the ratio of one to the square root of two. Very handy for illustrating Pythagoras’s famous theorem, in fact.

Nearby is a basket full of coloured pencils, including some of the best of all, the Berol Karisma range, now unfortunately discontinued. For each book I write, the paper is authorised for writing on by means of a coloured stripe along the top edge. I fan the sheets out and colour a stack at a time. The current book is a warm blend of Karisma Pumpkin Orange and Faber Castell Venetian Red. I sometimes think I should make it clear which key I’m writing a particular passage in – D minor, at the moment – but that would be silly, unlike colouring the pages, which makes perfect sense.

In front of me there’s a little aneroid barometer, a present from my son Tom, which also tells me the temperature and the humidity. Near that is a piece of equipment given to me by the scientists at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, which came out of an instrument that detects dark matter, or tries to. It’s a cylinder of glass in a copper casing, about the size of a small snowball but much heavier. I use it as a paperweight for my current manuscript, so it can go on detecting dark matter, or Dust, when I’m not around. I also keep some binoculars handy so I can watch any interesting birds through the window. The village heron lumbers past occasionally, and right now there’s a red kite circling over the church tower.

From the Bodleian Libraries' "Behind the Desk" series ...

Choosing.

Ari Weinzweig on transformative joy ...

Sometimes, of course, joy comes in these beautifully upbeat and innocent moments. But it’s of equal import when we’re struggling with a serious issue and unsure of how to move forward. Nearly a century ago, Tristan Tzara gave some advice that our whole country—me included, of course—could take to heart. “Let us try for once not to be right.” Instead, we can listen with open hearts and remember that joy is a part of living a good life, even in stressful situations. We can, in that context, skip the lectures and instead lean in and then learn some more. If we’re paying attention, the odds are pretty high that some joy will ensue. Choosing joy, even in the face of adversity, is one of the best ways we can lead positive change.

Happy Birthday, Sir Winston Churchill

"What shall I do with all my books?" was the question; and the answer, "Read them," sobered the questioner. But if you cannot read them, at any rate handle them and, as it were, fondle them. Peer into them. Let them fall open where they will. Read on from the first sentence that arrests the eye. Then turn to another. Make a voyage of discovery, taking soundings of uncharted seas. Set them back on their shelves with your own hands. Arrange them on your own plan, so that if you do not know what is in them, you at least know where they are. If they cannot be your friends, let them at any rate be your acquaintances. If they cannot enter the circle of your life, do not deny them at least a nod of recognition ...

Choose well, choose wisely, and choose one. Concentrate upon that one. Do not be content until you find yourself reading in it with real enjoyment. The process of reading for pleasure in another language rests the mental muscles; it enlivens the mind by a different sequence and emphasis of ideas. The mere form of speech excites the activity of separate brain-cells, relieving in the most effective manner the fatigue of those in hackneyed use. One may imagine that a man who blew the trumpet for his living would be glad to play the violin for his amusement. So it is with reading in another language than your own.

Sir Winston Churchill, born on this day in 1874, from Thoughts and Adventures

Alex de Grassi, "Si Bheag Si Mhor"

Prepared.

Forewarned, forearmed; to be prepared is half the victory. 

Miguel de Cervantes

GO BLUE!

Uncle Ted, "Just What the Doctor Ordered"

What a perfect late November day!

GO BLUE!

Happy Birthday, C.S. Lewis

"Don't you like a rather foggy wood in autumn? You'll find we shall be perfectly warm sitting in the car."

Jane said she'd never heard of anyone liking fogs before but she didn't mind trying. All three got in.

"That's why Camilla and I got married, "said Denniston as they drove off. "We both like Weather. Not this or that kind of weather, but just Weather. It's a useful taste if one lives in England."

"How ever did you learn to do that, Mr. Denniston?" said Jane. "I don't think I should ever learn to like rain and snow."

"It's the other way round," said Denniston. "Everyone begins as a child by liking Weather. You learn the art of disliking it as you grow up. Noticed it on a snowy day? The grown-ups are all going about with long faces, but look at the children - and the dogs? They know what snow's made for."

"I'm sure I hated wet days as a child," said Jane.

"That's because the grown-ups kept you in," said Camilla. "Any child loves rain if it's allowed to go out and paddle about in it."

C.S. Lewis, born on this day in 1898, from That Hideous Strength

Harrison's.

Jim Harrison's home in Lake Leelanau is for sale again.

Worthwhile.

What has reason to do with anything worthwhile?

William Blake

Happy Birthday, Jean-Baptiste Lully

Roullet, Lully, 1693

Jean-Baptiste Lully was born on this day in 1632.

The Namur Chamber Choir and Millenium Orchestra Cappella Mediterranea, directed by Patrick Cohën-Akenine, perform the Te Deum Laudamus from the Hymn of Saint Ambroise ...

Track.

For those who track time by the turning of leaves and migration of geese.

Happy Birthday, William Blake

The man who never in his mind and thoughts travel'd to heaven is no artist.

William Blake, born on this day in 1757

Thanks, Walker's Arms.

Alex de Grassi, "Blue Trout"

Hurrah.

Currier & Ives, Home to Thanksgiving, 1867

OVER THE RIVER and THROUGH the WOOD

Over the river, and through the wood,

To Grandfather’s house we go;

The horse knows the way,

To carry the sleigh,

Through the white and drifted snow.

Over the river, and through the wood,

To Grandfather’s house away!

We would not stop

For doll or top, For it is Thanksgiving Day.

Over the river, and through the wood,

Oh, how the wind does blow!

It stings the toes,

And bites the nose,

As over the ground we go.

Over the river, and through the wood,

With a clear blue winter sky,

The dogs do bark,

And children hark,

As we go jingling by.

Over the river, and through the wood,

To have a first-rate play –

Hear the bells ring,

“Ting a ling ding!”

Hurray for Thanksgiving Day!

Over the river, and through the wood,

No matter for winds that blow

Or if we get

The sleigh upset

Into a bank of snow.

Over the river, and through the wood,

To see little John and Ann;

We will kiss them all,

And play snowball,

And stay as long as we can.

Over the river, and through the wood,

Trot fast my dapple grey!

Spring over the ground,

Like a hunting-hound,

For ’tis Thanksgiving Day!

Over the river, and through the wood,

And straight through the barnyard gate;

We seem to go

Extremely slow,

It is so hard to wait!

Over the river, and through the wood –

Old Jowler hears our bells;

He shakes his pow,

With a loud bow-wow,

And thus the news he tells.

Over the river, and through the wood,

When Grandmother sees us come,

She will say, “O, dear,

The children are here,

Bring pie for everyone.”

Over the river, and through the wood,

Now Grandmother’s cap I spy!

Hurrah for the fun!

Is the pudding done?

Hurrah for the pumpkin pie!

Lydia Maria Child

Brian Bazier performs your accompaniment on the tubaccordion ...

Ice-Cold.

Getting ready for the Lions game, Dad would always set out creamed herring, extra sharp Pinconning cheddar, Triscuits, and "ice-cold" Bud.  

"It's gotta be ice-cold!"

Thanks, Pop.

Tradition.

Vintage Detroit looks at the Lions' Thanksgiving tradition ...

The tradition began in 1934, during the team’s first season in Detroit. Then-owner G.A. “Dick” Richards, who had recently moved the franchise from Portsmouth, Ohio, was struggling to draw fans. Despite fielding a competitive team, the Lions couldn’t lure attention away from baseball’s powerhouse Detroit Tigers.

Richards, who also owned a radio station, decided to stage a bold publicity stunt: a Thanksgiving Day game. He convinced the NBC Radio Network to broadcast it nationally—an unprecedented move at the time. On November 29, 1934, the Lions hosted the defending champion Chicago Bears at University of Detroit Stadium.

The result? A sellout crowd of 26,000 fans, with thousands more turned away at the gates. The Bears won 19–16, but Detroit’s holiday football experiment was a resounding success. A new tradition was born.

Telemann, Tafelmusik

Jordi Savall leads The Georgian Sinfonietta in a performance of the Suite in B-Major (TWV 55:B 1) ...

Desire.

Blest.

Wyeth, N.C., An Early Thanksgiving, 1926

EPITAPHIUM MEUM 

Certain Verses left by the Honoured William Bradford Esq.; Governour of the Jurisdic

From my years young in days of youth,

God did make known to me his truth,

And call'd me from my native place

For to enjoy the means of grace

In wilderness he did me guide,

And in strange lands for me provide.

In fears and wants, through weal and woe,

As pilgrim passed I to and fro:

Oft left of them whom I did trust;

How vain it is to rest on dust!

A man of sorrows I have been,

And many changes I have seen.

Wars, wants, peace, plenty have I known;

And some advanc'd, others thrown down.

The humble, poor, cheerful and glad;

Rich, discontent, sower and sad:

When fears with sorrows have been mixed,

Consolations came betwixt.

Faint not, poor soul, in God still trust,

Fear not the things thou suffer must;

For, whom he loves he doth chastise,

And then all tears wipes from their eyes.

Farewell, dear children, whom I love,

Your better father is above:

When I am gone, he can supply;

To him I leave you when I die.

Fear him in truth, walk in his ways,

And he will bless you all your days.

My days are spent, old age is come,

My strength it fails, my glass near run:

Now I will wait when work is done,

Until my happy change shall come,

When from my labors I shall rest

With Christ above for to be blest.

William Bradford

Remember.

Wyeth, Corn Harvest, 1934

The odor of the coming feast fills the air.  Go! Remember God's bounty in the year. String the pearls of your favor. Hide the dark parts, except so far as they are breaking out in light. Give this one day to thanks, to joy, to gratitude. And, on such a day as this, while you participate in the bounties of your table, remember that there is that which God will esteem even more as a thanksgiving. Forgive your enemies. Settle the differences that have vexed the year. Humble yourselves one toward another. Tell God, as you go home, that, in requital of his great goodness and county to you, you cleanse your heart and wash your hands; you sacrifice your enmities; you augment your charities. Look upon the poor among you, and forget not the stranger. 

Henry Ward Beecher, from "The Family as an American Institution"

Long-Playing.

Another Amateur Night is upon us.  Stay in and pile thirteen hours of long-playing, microgrooved, nonbreakable stereophonic platters on the hi-fi ...

Designed for dancing with no interruption between numbers.

Kurt suggests a worthy addition ...