Inspirations
I discovered a long time ago that writing of the small things of the day, the trivial matters of the hearth, the inconsequential but near things of this living, was the only kind of creative work which I could accomplish with any sincerity or grace.
- E. B. White
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing."
- William Shakespeare's Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17-28)
STEUBEN 1806 Pioneer Cemetery, Prattsburgh, NY
Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow
Title of Sophie Fiennes' documentary on Anselm Kiefer's installation
...Zen has no goal; it is a traveling without point, with no where to go. To travel is to be alive, but to get somewhere is to be dead, for as our own proverb says, "To travel well is better than to arrive."
-Alan Watts' The Way of Zen (pages 196 - 197)
TIOGA Broad Street, Waverly, NY
I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happens to them all.
Ecclesiastes 9:11
The wild geese do not intend to cast their reflection;
The water has no mind to receive their image.
- Zenrim poem in Alan Watts' The Way of Zen (page 181)
SCHUYLER Cayuta Lake, Alpine, NY
"The sun did not know how beautiful its light was until it was reflected off this building".
- Louis Kahn speaking of the Sydney Opera House
"I love child things because there's so much mystery when you're a child. When you're a child, something as simple as a tree doesn't make sense. You see it in the distance and it looks small, but as you go closer, it seems to grow - you haven't got a handle on the rules when you're a child. We think we understand the rules when we become adults but what we really experienced is a narrowing of the imagination."
- David Lynch
CHEMUNG Horseheads, NY
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
William Shakespeare's The Tempest Act 4, Scene 1