Sleeping Muse and Falling Rocket

The King James version of the bible was published in 1611, the year Shakespeare turned 46. In Psalm 46, count 46 words from the beginning. Count 46 words from the ending  (Ignoring the word 'selah,' a word of unknown meaning that may be a sort of musical notation.) PSALM 46 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah. There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early. The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted. The  Lord  of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah. Come, behold the wor...

Musee des Beaux Arts W. H. Auden About suffering they were never wrong, The old Masters: how well they understood Its human position: how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along; How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting For the miraculous birth, there always must be Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating On a pond at the edge of the wood: They never forgot That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse Scratches its innocent behind on a tree. In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen ...

"There is no English surname, no matter how ancient, that cannot be instantly improved by the prefix 'Spanker.'" - Christopher Hitchens

Calvino and Borges

      Surrealist Giorgio de Chirico was greatly influenced by the German Symbolist painter/sculptor Max Klinger. Max Klinger!