Human rights groups wary after president asks Congress to establish special court or board to authorise legal drone action
People in coats and ties were milling around the Talley gallery, and on the wall were the minimally rendered still lifes by Giorgio Morandi, most of them no bigger than a tea tray. Their thin browns, ashy grays, and muted blues made people speak softly to one another, as if a shouted word might curdle one of the paintings and ruin it. Bottles, carafes, and ceramic whatnots sat in his paintings like small animals huddling for warmth, and these shy pictures could easily hang next to a Picasso or Matisse without feeling inferior.”
― Steve Martin, An Object of Beauty
― Steve Martin, An Object of Beauty
“
| — | (via journalofanobody) |
Now I am quietly waiting for
the catastrophe of my personality
to seem beautiful again…
the catastrophe of my personality
to seem beautiful again…
“
| — | Frank O’Hara, from “Mayakovsky” (via proustitute) |
1
Out of the rolling ocean, the crowd, came a drop gently to me,
Whispering, I love you, before long I die,
I have travel’d a long way, merely to look on you, to touch you,
For I could not die till I once look’d on you,
For I fear’d I might afterward lose you.
2
(Now we have met, we have look’d, we are safe;
Return in peace to the ocean, my love;
I too am part of that ocean, my love—we are not so much separated;
Behold the great rondure—the cohesion of all, how perfect!
But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us,
As for an hour carrying us diverse—yet cannot carry us diverse forever;
Be not impatient—a little space—know you, I salute the air, the ocean and the land,
Every day, at sundown, for your dear sake, my love.)
“
| — | Walt Whitman, Out of the Rolling Ocean, the Crowd (via myimaginarybrooklyn) |
Would you like to save the world from the degradation and destruction it seems destined for? Then step away from shallow mass movements and quietly go to work on your own self-awareness. If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself. If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself. Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation.
“
| — | Lao Tzu (via moreofamore) |
Give me a thing that says nothing.
The wind, for instance,
A wisdom that comes from ten thousand miles to the west.
The trees, for instance, stenographers
Of every sentence it isn’t able to utter.
The grass that assembles them all
in its green pages.
The dirt that substracts each word, syllable after syllable,
Into its dark book, and keeps them there
In ignorance, a blessed ignorance we’ll come to know,
A radiant cloud at our mouths,
breath like no other.
—Charles Wright, from “26” in Littlefoot: A Poem (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2007)
The way you speak to others can offer them joy, happiness, self-confidence, hope, trust, and enlightenment. Mindful speaking is a deep practice.
“
| — |
Thich Nhat Hanh (via twotonmantaray) |
