Better Living Through Literature
Words + Projects + Stuff I Like
In poem form.
Love for Other Things
It’s easy to love a deer
But try to care about bugs and scrawny trees
Love the puddle of lukewarm water
From last week’s rain.
Leave the mountains alone for now.
Also the clear lakes surrounded by pines.
People are lined up to admire them.
Get close to the things that slide away in the dark.
Be grateful even for the boredom
That sometimes seems to involve the whole world.
Think of the frost
That will crack our bones eventually.
1. It’s my sister-in-law’s birthday today! It’s been 11 years now and she’s still kind and happy and accommodating and delightful to be around, no matter what my family throws at her. Happy birthday, Altair!
2. Tomorrow is St. Lucy’s Day, which I’m just learning about as “one of the few saints celebrated by the overwhelmingly Lutheran Nordic people”. The celebration includes wearing a wreath on your head and lighting candles to fight the darkness of winter, so it should come as no surprise I like it.
3. And finally, I learned that someone who makes scissors is called a “putter,” which is short for “putter-togetherer.” Here is a nice little silent film about a putter:
The Putter from shaun bloodworth on Vimeo.
In a world of news that continues to be depressing, finding a story about “the most detailed map yet of our place in the universe” provided some needed perspective.
As the article says:
In a fascinating new study for Nature, a team of scientists mapped thousands of galaxies in our immediate vicinity, and discovered that the Milky Way is part of a jaw-droppingly massive “supercluster” of galaxies that they named Laniakea.
This structure is much, much, much bigger than astronomers had previously realized. Laniakea contains more than 100,000 galaxies, stretches 500 million light years across, and looks something like this (the Milky Way is just a speck located on one of its fringes on the right):
And, it turns out, that the Lanaikea (Hawaiian for “immense heavens”) supercluster is just part of MORE superclusters that make up the universe. Superclusters of galaxies, each galaxy with millions of stars… mind blowing.
Maybe we all need to listen to Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot” again? Come on, humanity.
Photos are back today (yay!) so let’s look at Toby being very dedicated to testing the blankets through every step of the process.
There was the Stretching Test:
The Biscuit-Making Test:
The Rolling Test:
And the look of approval that everything passed the test (blurry, but he looks SO PLEASED here):
And here’s half the final stack of finished blankets. I hope they help some shelter kitties stretch, roll, or make biscuits a little more comfortably:
On Sunday I hosted the annual party where we make tied fleece blankets for the local animal shelters. I think this was the fourth or fifth year and we got two dozen blankets done (the vast majority done by my mom, but at least I helped tie).
Toby, of course, was quality control on the blankets I did work on…. but I’m getting upload errors on the photos this morning and it’s time to go to work, so you’ll have to use your imagination today.
The Writer’s Almanac tells me it was Willa Cather’s birthday yesterday and gave us this quote about writing from one of her letters:
When one comes to write […] all that you have been taught leaves you, all that you have stolen lies discovered. […] You have then to give voice to the hearts of men, and you can do it only so far as you have known them, loved them. It is a solemn and terrible thing to write a novel.”
1. The news cycle lately has been so depressing (Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Darrien Hunt here in Utah, the Cleveland police, the fact that the specter of “ebola in America” went away the minute the elections were over, Bill Cosby, air quality and our winter inversions, global warming, really–just pick something and it is depressing). I don’t even have a hippie platitude for it.
3. I do, however, have a picture of Toby in a cowboy hat that Doc photoshopped and sent to me. So there’s that. I’ll take what I can get.
This is an E.E. Cummings one I just discovered. “The always puzzle of living and doing” is right on lately, Edward Estlin.
You are tired
You are tired,
(I think)
Of the always puzzle of living and doing;
And so am I.
Come with me, then,
And we’ll leave it far and far away—
(Only you and I, understand!)
You have played,
(I think)
And broke the toys you were fondest of,
And are a little tired now;
Tired of things that break, and—
Just tired.
So am I.
But I come with a dream in my eyes tonight,
And knock with a rose at the hopeless gate of your heart—
Open to me!
For I will show you the places Nobody knows,
And, if you like,
The perfect places of Sleep.
Ah, come with me!
I’ll blow you that wonderful bubble, the moon,
That floats forever and a day;
I’ll sing you the jacinth song
Of the probable stars;
I will attempt the unstartled steppes of dream,
Until I find the Only Flower,
Which shall keep (I think) your little heart
While the moon comes out of the sea.
Did time speed up exponentially after Thanksgiving? Do you have a party, two birthdays, and Christmas to prepare for? Are you turning 35 exactly one month from today? Is 35 five years away from 40?
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, clearly you need to take a deep breath, calm down, and watch “Lil BUB’s Magical Yule Log”–one hour of Lil BUB the cat relaxing in front of the fire.
Aaaaaah. It’ll all be ok. Lil BUB’s tongue tells us so.
If it’s December, it’s time for the Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar: a new picture from the Hubble Telescope posted every day until Christmas. It’s one of my favorite parts of the year.
For bonus space goodness, you can watch this animated film about potential human exploration of space, with bonus (bonus) Carl Sagan narration. Very cool.
Wanderers – a short film by Erik Wernquist from Erik Wernquist on Vimeo.