Loosely Speaking

By Ciel - About Me - E-mail this page - Add to My Favorites - Add to Blog List - See other blogs in Everything Else

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Where did HollyBird go?

Does anybody know? Just got used to finding her on Blogit-- Disappointed she seems to've logged it. Gonna miss her tantalizing tale of affections, of humor and joy and human connections. She really has a winning style... Maybe she'll be back in a while. Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 6:03 PM | add or view comments (12) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

This time it worked the first time!

A new slide show at AC: http://www.associatedcontent.com/slideshow/5555/the_face_of_the_wild_dragonflies_.html?cat=58 Anything in particular you'd like to see--chances are, I have something in the collection for you... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 1:38 PM | add or view comments (0) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

A Day at the Zoo...grrrrrrr...

When I go to the zoo, I get really irritated. Is it the people who drag unwilling toddlers up and down the trails, expecting them to be delighted with all the animals? Toddlers don't know this is a thrill--every cat and dog is an exciting critter, they don't need lions and elephants. And they don't like long, hot days of overstimulation. Is it the ones old enough to know better who bang on the glass because "there wasn't a sign on this one not to!" (Yes, a quote overheard today, from a big... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 5:15 PM | add or view comments (5) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

Monday, July 14, 2008

Yay...! (sort of...)

The pictures have appeared, though it is hardly the sort of slideshow I intended. The photos are sharing each page with so much other stuff, it just isn't all that aesthetically pleasing. Still, I would love you to visit and tell me what you think of it. This should take you there: http://www.associatedcontent.com/slideshow/5421/the_sally_garden.html?cat=32 No cost to you to visit, and every click is a piece of a penny for me. Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 8:08 PM | add or view comments (6) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

Greenfields, I spoke too loose in your blog...

Regarding the tribal mud paintings of dinosaurs. My daughter in the East posted a photo of a bas relief from the temples of Cambodia--not Angkor Wat, but in the same neighborhood--that was made ~1190 AD. It is clearly, unmistakeably a stegosaurus, with the wide bony back plates. Well, 18th century Europeans are unlikely to have been the first to have dug up dinosaurs. There was a fascinating program on one of the history or science channels a while back about how certain misinterpreted fossil... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 6:17 AM | add or view comments (1) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Did it again... I think.. Hey, you clever ones with computer stuff...Help!

It took me a few hours to load the pictures, to arrange them and credit and caption them... then Associated Content told me congratulations, I've published my first slide show. And gave me this link: http://www.associatedcontent.com/slideshow/5421/the_sally_garden.html If you can go there and figure out how to play the slide show, please come back here and tell me how you did it! I can't see any way to play the show. It is called The Sally Garden and it got its start here on Blogit, with Offy's... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 6:49 PM | add or view comments (11) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

Friday, July 11, 2008

It is Tolkien Time again...

This time the challenge was to write a poem about Nimrodel. In The Lord of the Rings, there is a tale told in a poem about the elf-maid Nimrodel beside whose waterfall the Fellowship rests for a while. She and her lover wandered in Middle-earth, then parted, meaning to reunite at the sailing of the last ship from Middle-earth into the West. But though they waited for her, Nimrodel never came to the ship. Amroth sailed but could not bear to leave her, and leaped into the sea to swim back to... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 5:26 PM | add or view comments (4) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

Thursday, July 10, 2008

This poem has come up in conversation here twice lately

so here it is in its entirety, a message apt when it was written on the eve of World War II and now, too. September 1, 1939 by W. H. Auden I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade: Waves of anger and fear Circulate over the bright And darkened lands of the earth, Obsessing our private lives; The unmentionable odour of death Offends the September night. Accurate scholarship can Unearth the whole offence From Luther... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 1:22 PM | add or view comments (3) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

A change of pace...

I was running through some old files, and thought this might appeal... LOTHLORIEN: A Tribute to Tolkien The leaves shine like gold in the long light of autumn, adrift upon the last breath of summer, sailing, like kites cut free, taking their own sweet time to come at last to rest... Years and seasons without number crunch in their layers beneath the feet that wander, among the grey-like-silver trees that stand and sigh in autumn's scented air... as if remembering the past... A time there was... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 12:55 PM | add or view comments (4) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

How did we get to this point?

TAPS asked this, in her comment in the previous post. It's the essential question, if we are ever to turn it around, make a return to the world where most people are respectful to one another, live with a regard for health, and value things of real substance. I think the initial turn-around started in the 1950s and 60s, with the generation of post-war parents who, coming from a heritage of privation in the war years, and the Great Depression, delighted in giving abundantly to their kids, proud... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 7:14 AM | add or view comments (8) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

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