To thine own self be true

The two ‘parent’ dopes who let their 2-year-old run free unsupervised in a diaper for 90 mins. while they went chasing Pokemons.
Sick, sick. The kid has been taken away from them. Rightfully so++

(symbolic self-portrait and personal-process pillow on chesterfield in living room bought at Calgary’s Glenbow art gallery)

“Is the true self this which stands on the pavement in January, or that which bends over the balcony in June? Am I here, or am I there? Or is the true self neither this nor that, neither here nor there, but something so varied and wandering that it is only when we give rein to its wishes and let it take its way unimpeded that we are indeed ourselves?”

Grocer in India beheads a couple who owed 29 cents and asked for more time to pay up.

Craziness and obsession with money = extreme violence and cold-blooded murder.
Money and the making of it is often more important than the law or lives of people.

Life can be very cheap sometimes. 29 cents for two lives, or two heads if you prefer. That’s 14 1/2 cents a head or life. The limits and limitations of some people measured in pennies. Equivalent to about what it costs for 3 plastic bags at some stores in Canada. Truly sick.

(top: A Ustinov masterpiece: extraordinarily and stunningly, he does all the voices, interviews, car sounds, and other sound effects; completely written and performed by him; what other comedian can you think of who has done that much this fabulously well?)

(bottom: an interview with the still-sharp, funny man at 80 on CD)

(his truly amusing autobiography signed with a humorous drawing of himself for U.S. talk show host Sarah Purcell; right: his CD performance of the book)

(Ustinov was a master of voices, characterization, and anecdote as this VHS–also available in DVD–amply illustrates. It was a privilege to hear him live in performance.)

(the authorized biography)

A Renaissance Man who was an English actor, writer, dramatist, humanitarian, comedian, and witty raconteur without equal. He won many awards including 2 Oscars, 3 Emmys, a Golden Globe, a BAFTA, and a Grammy. He is very funny in the Poirot movies he made, and in We’re No Angels, Topkapi, and Spartacus (the latter for which he provided a hilarious interview-commentary-extra on the Criterion version).

that one would not choose to live with or even have anything to do with. After physical appearances, voices are most important in choosing someone you’d like to spend some or much time with.

(blog entry on living imaginatively, richly and deeply, Prospero-ly: cultivating, enhancing, and facilitating life and personal possibilities; minimizing chaos, manipulations, and madness, particularly of others)

…was to pour whatever genius, talent, or inner gifts into daily life and its choices. He would evoke creative, expressive, and artful choices into being, often in conjunction with Nature and whatever civilized value or sensibilities. The trick was to manage and develop his life his own way in whatever way he freely chose, to maximize that precious freedom uniquely. “To thine own self be true.” All else would follow or take care of itself…

1. Paul Simon singing his song at age 74 is not to be compared with a young Garfunkle singing this song in 1970.
2. Simon wrote the song. He has lived the song, and is entitled to perform the song as he wishes. (Dylan does this each concert with his own material. Likewise, he feels no obligation to to matching or reperforming note-for-note the original version.) If critics missed it, Simon was very obviously interpreting the song and singing it from his heart. The fact that he knows the tune well enough to improvise or vary it, successfully by the way, is to his credit at 74. Many critics don’t like improv, especially in popular artists who have been commercially successful.
3. Simon knew what he wanted to do with the song in advance and had rehearsed it extensively beforehand with the band. He had already made his choices before he opened his mouth live. He, again, sang the song the way it felt last night in that context live.
4. There are a lot of people who are bugged with artists adapting or changing their own material from original recorded versions decades ago. That is their problem or limitation. Usually the critics are not good or successful performers or don’t know what it’s like to perform, as Simon does, over 60 years, especially. Paul Simon is a Legend and whatever criticism is weak and unfounded.
5. Paul Simon sang this song truthfully and honestly the way I would expect him to sing it at age 74. He has still ‘got it’ after all this time; the carping critics ‘don’t get it’ and did not see how moved the audience was singing along and swaying. They have no sense of reality, truth, or even honest reporting.

From too many people still following too closely, moving forward in their own minds irrespective of actual physical conditions and other people’s situations.

But most of these bashed-ins self-inflicted by unnecessary, gratuitous, ‘smart’ backing-in on parking lots everywhere you go. The result of posts, signs, buildings, poles, kids, etc.

Too difficult for too many to walk any distance or to find a drive-thru back-to-back parking spot, driving thru, then parking facing forward without bashing in to someone or something else. Lazy methinks and too ‘smart’. We do it to ourselves often behind the wheel with no one else around even. (That and an over-reliance on technology.)

(how Nature affects our lives in context via setting and atmosphere–in Canada for sure)

(Nature as source of Beauty)

(Nature in our daily contexts and connections: pets)

(whatever human places and habitations framed by Nature)

(perspective: Nature found throughout life unto death–flower wreath, earth resting-place)

…Nature affects my sleep whether my window is open or not, the ongoing changing weather outside as well. Also that sleep is a natural cycle anyway–we all need it, have to give in to it.

The cycles of the body beginning with waking up, adhering to whatever other natural flows and processes.

Then to the kitchen for coffee, grown in Nature. Fruit also from South American jungles and Canadian orchards. Grains in cereal grown in North America. Milk from local cows.

Open the family room sliding window to let the light and air come in. Hear the birds singing in the backyard. see all the flowers growing that were planted in May, the grass still low cut last Thursday.

The flow and chi that moves through everything, starting the day. The easy flow of first thoughts, starting the day and this blog entry, too.

Yes, Nature outside and in, affecting all contexts and all human operations and behaviors. Top to bottom 24/7/365. More basic than most people ever know or care to realize. More basic than money or material obsession. More basic than whatever human agendas and attempts to control.

An early 1900s ‘found art object’ recovered from the trash. A glassed-in box with sand on the bottom, stars (which look like kids’ conception of pointy stars) on the background. A single wooden pole with a ring across the width of the box about 3/5s of the way up. About 4 balls–1 a pool cueball, others marbles in the sand.
Appraiser says this could very well be by a famous artist who did these kinds of boxes out of ordinary objects. No signature on the box. But a catalogue of the guy’s works is currently in publication process. The woman who’s brought the item should check with the catalogue when it’s published. Item could be worth 100,000 if it’s authentic. Or less than 100 if not!