Sweet End of the Week

Friday, January 22nd

"There is something about a bureaucrat that does not like a poem."

-Gore Vidal

Thursday, January 21st

Quote of the Day:

“Boring damned people. All over the earth. Propagating more boring damned people. What a horror show. The earth swarmed with them.”

― Charles Bukowski

Biden Inaugurated as the 46th President

Presidential Inauguration & Poetry

Maya Angelou / Bill Clinton 1993

Wednesday, January 20th

Poem of the Day:

by Langston Hughes

LET AMERICA BE AMERICA AGAIN

Let America be America again.

Let it be the dream it used to be.

Let it be the pioneer on the plain

Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--

Let it be that great strong land of love

Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme

That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

Read the full poem HERE

Tuesday, January 19th

“Come back!" the Caterpillar called after her. "I've something important to say."

This sounded promising, certainly. Alice turned and came back again.

"Keep your temper," said the Caterpillar.”

― Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass

Monday, January 18th

Quote of the Day:

“Raindrops blossom brilliantly in the rainbow, and change to flowers in the sod, but snow comes in full flower direct from the dark, frozen sky.”

― John Muir, The Mountains of California

John Muir was perhaps this country's most famous and influential naturalist. If it weren't for John Muir and his writings, we probably would not have Yosemite National Park as we know it today. He was also involved in the creation of the Grand Canyon, Kings Canyon, Petrified Forest, and Mt. Rainier National Parks

Sunday, January 17th

Movie Quote of the Day:

“Every man dies, but not every man really lives.”

–William Wallace

from BRAVEHEART (directed by Mel Gibson)

Saturday, January 16th

Poem of the Day:

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

Robert Frost

David Bowie - 50 Birthday Concert (1997) - Madison Square Garden

Friday, January 15th

Quote of the Day:

"The politician is an acrobat. He keeps his balance by saying the opposite of what he does."

Maurice Barrès

Thursday, January 14th

Quote of the Day:

“Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes. Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such”

― Henry Miller

Wednesday, January 13th

Quote of the Day:

“We work in the dark - we do what we can - we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.”

― Henry James, The Middle Years

If you don't have the patience, if you're too lazy...at least, listen to one of the greatest novels of the 20th Century...

Tuesday, January 12th

Quote of the Day:

“There's nothing so absurd that if you repeat it often enough, people will believe it.”

William James

A new application for your phone:

Visit the Met (the most wonderful Art Museum in the World!)

The Met Unframed

Monday, January 11th

Poem of the Day:

by Langston Hughes

“Frosting

Freedom

Is just frosting

On somebody else’s

Cake–

And so must be

Till we

Learn how to

Bake.”

– The Panther & the Lash, 1926

Sunday, January 10th

Not getting any younger....

Guns'n Roses Concert in Paris 1992

Saturday, January 9th

Poem of the Day:

have you ever cut your finger while cooking? read below, for this is what if feels like!

Cut

What a thrill -

My thumb instead of an onion.

The top quite gone

Except for a sort of hinge

Of skin,

A flap like a hat,

Dead white.

Then that red plush.

SYLVIA PLATH

read the full poem

Enjoy Today's Show

Ruthless

Friday, January 8th

Quote of the Day:

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”

― Anais Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934

Thursday, January 7th

Quotes of the Day:

“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”

― Winston S. Churchill

“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.”

― Thomas Jefferson

“It's not the voting that's democracy, it's the counting.”

― Tom Stoppard, Jumpers

Tuesday, January 5th

Quote of the Day:

“And metaphors like cats behind your smile,

Each one wound up to purr,

each one a pride,

Each one a fine gold beast you've hid inside (...)”

― Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

Monday, January 4th

Quote of the Day:

“Nothing burns like the cold. But only for a while. Then it gets inside you and starts to fill you up, and after a while you don't have the strength to fight it.”

― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

Sunday, January 3rd

Quote of the Day:

“Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.”

― Jim Morrison

Saturday, January 2nd

Quote of the Day:

“The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes. If you foolishly ignore beauty, you will soon find yourself without it. Your life will be impoverished. But if you invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life.”

― Frank Lloyd Wright

(MrB's footnote: FLW was one of the greatest architects of the 20th Century)

Friday, January 1st

Quote of the Day:

“It is by no means an irrational fancy that, in a future existence, we shall look upon what we think our present existence, as a dream.”

― Edgar Allan Poe

Today's Show

Legally Blonde : the Musical

Thursday, December 31st

Poem of the Day:

Waking In Winter

I can taste the tin of the sky —- the real tin thing.

Winter dawn is the color of metal,

The trees stiffen into place like burnt nerves.

Sylvia Plath

(click here to read the full poem)

New York City Nostalgia

Wednesday, December 30th

Quote of the Day:

“We must leave this terrifying place to-morrow and go searching for sunshine.”

― F. Scott Fitzgerald , This Side of Paradise

Tuesday, December 29th

Poem of the Day:

“Faith” is a fine invention

For Gentlemen who see!

But Microscopes are prudent

In an Emergency!

Emily Dickinson

Monday, December 28th

Your Show

Hetty Feather

Sunday, December 27th

Poem of the Day:

If I Could Tell You

by W.H. Auden

Time will say nothing but I told you so,

Time only knows the price we have to pay;

If I could tell you I would let you know.

If we should weep when clowns put on their show,

If we should stumble when musicians play,

Time will say nothing but I told you so.

There are no fortunes to be told, although,

Because I love you more than I can say,

If I could tell you I would let you know.

The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,

There must be reasons why the leaves decay;

Time will say nothing but I told you so.

Perhaps the roses really want to grow,

The vision seriously intends to stay;

If I could tell you I would let you know.

Suppose all the lions get up and go,

And all the brooks and soldiers run away;

Will Time say nothing but I told you so?

If I could tell you I would let you know.

The Show of the Day

Saturday, December 26th

Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of 

The War of the Worlds

Friday, December 25th

Wednesday, December 23rd

Poem of the Day

by Paul KANE

THE KOAN

I am the mask I wear and know as little

about the wearer as the puppet the puppeteer.

The life I live isn’t mine, it lives through me

and I through it dance and strut on my strings

in counterfeit. If you told me about myself

I would not believe you, for how can I be other

than what I have known? When I die, who I am

will step out into the light to try another life,

while I--having passed away--will know all

and nothing. In the dark, I am riddled by doubt.

Tuesday, December 22nd

Quote of the Day:

“Do not be angry with the rain; it simply does not know how to fall upwards.”

― Vladimir Nabokov

The Show of the Day

The Railway Children

Thanks to Peter Jackson,

go back in time to The Beatles’ intimate recording sessions...

Monday, December 21st

Poem of the Day:

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Come, come thou bleak December wind,

And blow the dry leaves from the tree!

Flash, like a Love-thought, thro' me, Death

And take a Life that wearies me.

Saturday, December 19th

Poem of the Day:

“The Day is Done

The day is done, and the darkness

Falls from the wings of Night,

As a feather is wafted downward

From an eagle in his flight.

I see the lights of the village

Gleam through the rain and the mist,

And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me

That my soul cannot resist:

A feeling of sadness and longing,

That is not akin to pain,

And resembles sorrow only

As the mist resembles the rain.

Come, read to me some poem,

Some simple and heartfelt lay,

That shall soothe this restless feeling,

And banish the thoughts of day.

Not from the grand old masters,

Not from the bards sublime,

Whose distant footsteps echo

Through the corridors of Time.

For, like strains of martial music,

Their mighty thoughts suggest

Life's endless toil and endeavor;

And to-night I long for rest.

Read from some humbler poet,

Whose songs gushed from his heart,

As showers from the clouds of summer,

Or tears from the eyelids start;

Who, through long days of labor,

And nights devoid of ease,

Still heard in his soul the music

Of wonderful melodies.

Such songs have power to quiet

The restless pulse of care,

And come like the benediction

That follows after prayer.

Then read from the treasured volume

The poem of thy choice,

And lend to the rhyme of the poet

The beauty of thy voice.

And the night shall be filled with music,

And the cares, that infest the day,

Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,

And as silently steal away.”

― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems

Thursday, December 17th

Poem of the Day:

“Surgeons must be very careful

When they take the knife!

Underneath their fine incisions

Stirs the Culprit—Life!”

― Emily Dickinson

Wednesday, December 16th

Quote of the Day:

“Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.”

― Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Tuesday, December 15th

Many Thanks to : Angela, Axel, Jasmine, Safiyatou,

Jean-Guillaume, Charlotte & Sidonie for their

thoughtful presents!

Quote of the Day:

“[Kids] don't remember what you try to teach them. They remember what you are.”

― Jim Henson

John Le Carre dead: Legendary writer dies aged 89

John Le Carre - most famous for his work “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy” and “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" - has died aged 89

Monday, December 14th

Quote of the Day:

“We lie to one another every day, in the sweetest way, often unconsciously. We dress ourselves and compose ourselves in order to present ourselves to one another.”

― John le Carré 

Sunday, December 13th

Quote of the Day:

“A library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragement and comfort. A library is a good place to go when you feel bewildered or undecided, for there, in a book, you may have your question answered. Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people - people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book."

Letters of Note

― E.B. White

For this Sunday, two shows, two styles,

two moods, two generations?...

Saturday, December 12th

Quote of the Day:

“Must I observe you? Must I stand

& crouch

Under your testy humour?

By the gods,

You shall digest the venom of

your spleen,

Though it do split you, for, from this

day forth, I'll use you for my mirth, yea,

for my laughter, when you are waspish.”

― William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

Friday, December 11th

Quote of the Day:

“The evolution of sense is, in a sense, the evolution of nonsense.”

-- Vladimir Nabokov

Picture Below

Many thanks to Eléonore and Zoé for their masterpiece...

Avis Aux Lycéens:

je sais bien que l'organisation des cours par demi-groupes est très pénible (certains diraient "mortelle" mais l'on crierait au mauvais goût) pour vous, mais il faut absolument venir dans ma salle de classe à jour dans ses connaissances, dans la consultation des divers supports et dans les tâches données, sinon c'est se jeter à l'eau en se disant que l'on apprendra à nager ultérieurement...

Sinon, ici, c'est la page d'accueil...il faut aller sur l'onglet Secondes ou Premières pour accéder auxdits cours

MrB

Thursday, December 10th

Quote of the Day:

“I won't tell you that the world matters nothing, or the world's voice, or the voice of society. They matter a good deal. They matter far too much. But there are moments when one has to choose between living one's own life, fully, entirely, completely—or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands. You have that moment now. Choose!”

― Oscar Wilde

Wednesday, December 9th

Poem for Tonight:

“there’s nothing to

discuss

there’s nothing to

remember

there’s nothing to

forget

it’s sad

and

it’s not

sad

seems the

most sensible

thing

a person can

do

is

sit

with drink in

hand

as the walls

wave

their goodbye

smiles

one comes through

it

all

with a certain

amount of

efficiency and

bravery

then

leaves

some accept

the possibility of

God

to help them

get

through

others

take it

staight on

and to these

I drink

tonight.”

― Charles Bukowski, You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense

Tuesday, December 8th

Quote of the Day:

“It always stimulates me to discover new examples of my own prejudice and stupidity, to realize that I don't know half as much as I think I do.”

― Paul Auster, Oracle Night

Sunday, December 6th

Poem of the Day:

“We look before and after,

And pine for what is not;

Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught;

Our sweetest songs are those that tell

Of saddest thought.”

― Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Complete Poems

Saturday, December 5th

Quote of the Day:

“If we seek solace in the prisons of the distant past

Security in human systems we're told will always always last

Emotions are the sail and blind faith is the mast

Without the breath of real freedom we're getting nowhere fast."

(History Will Teach Us Nothing)”

― Sting, Nothing Like the Sun