Sung by Rudy Vallee at the funeral of Tom Mix (1880-1940)
“There’s something strange in the old corral. There’s a breeze though the wind has died. Though I’m alone in the old corral, seems there is someone by my side.
“Empty saddles in the old corral, where do you ride tonight?”
– “Empty Saddles,” lyrics by J. [...]
Archive for January, 2008
Empty Saddles
Posted in Film, Music on January 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Nostalgia for Everything
Posted in Literature on January 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
“This time of year for some reason I get filled with nostalgia like a Jules Verne balloon. I’m like Marcel Proust, who smelled a cookie and couldn’t stop remembering. Wood fires are my cookie. I remember walking through an old square in my hometown in Romania, late fall 1958, kicking leaves with my feet and [...]
Not Uncommon
Posted in Uncategorized on January 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
“There was no loneliness in the woods. I sensed a certain kinship, even with the mosquitoes and ticks; to travel so far and persistently at only the hope of a warm attachment is an act not uncommon to my tribe.”
– John Lane in “Natural Edges,” collected in In Short (1996), edited by Judith Kitchen and [...]
Five O’Clock Tea
Posted in Art, Gardening, Tea on January 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I am a fool for Jessie Wilcox Smith (1863-1935), an illustrator who studied with Howard Pyle and specialized in images of children. I think her work is magical, almost dream-like, pretty and sentimental to be sure, but much deeper than that. She was brought to mind when I saw these images yesterday, from postcards published [...]
Peel
Posted in Art on January 11, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Designer, recycler and Renaissance Man Peter Castellucci (shown above) has introduced me to the intoxicating Peel Magazine, an English publication filled with street art and stickers. Energy, fun, great art.
Relations
Posted in Literature on January 11, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
“Cousin Mia was a grumpy, massive specimen of the Victorian age; she was Julia’s first cousin and was celebrated as a model of the domestic virtues. She never let a birthday pass without making a suitable present and she expected others to be equally punctilious; if any child should forget her kindness, Cousin Mia would [...]
Polo, a Spy, and a Starlet
Posted in Film, Polo on January 10, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I am easily distracted. The other day, in search of information on polo player Stephen “Laddie” Sanford, whose Hurricanes won the U.S.Open five times in three different decades, I learned that Laddie had graced the cover of Time magazine, knew Cole Porter, played polo on Long Island [...]
Sumo Christmas Card
Posted in Art, Religion, Sumo on January 10, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Sumo Season’s Greetings from my nephew, Sean Winship, in Nara, Japan. It doesn’t get much better than this.
I always liked Kant
Posted in Dogs on January 8, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
“If man is not to stifle his human feelings, he must practice kindness towards animals, for he who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.”
– Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
Thank Heaven
Posted in Commentary on January 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
“Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies but as liberators.”
– Lt. Gen. Stanley Maude, commander of the Anglo-Indian Army of the Tigris, speaking to the Iraqi people on March 8, 1917; quoted in I Wouldn’t Start from Here by Andrew Mueller
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