"Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

- Lewis Carroll

"If you do not know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere."

- Henry Kissinger

"To thine own self be true . . . and thou canst not then be false to any man."

- William Shakespeare

"If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it is yours. If it doesn't, it never was."

- Unknown

"The future is neither unseen or unknown. It is what we make of it.

- Excerpt from the Coronation Address of His Majesty King Khesar, The 5th Druk Gyalpo of Bhutan

"You miss 100% of the shots you never take."

- Wayne Gretzky

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28)

In a Sentimental Mood
Duke Ellington

"In a Sentimental Mood" is a jazz composition by Duke Ellington which is also performed as a song. Ellington composed the piece in 1935 and recorded it with his orchestra the same year. Lyrics were later written for the tune by Irving Mills and Manny Kurtz. According to Ellington, the song was born in Durham, North Carolina. "We had played a big dance in a tobacco warehouse, and afterwards a friend of mine, an executive in the North Carolina Mutual Insurance Company, threw a party for us. I was playing piano when another one of our friends had some trouble with two chicks. To pacify them, I composed this there and then, with one chick standing on each side of the piano." The original recording featured solos by Otto Hardwicke, Harry Carney, Lawrence Brown, and Rex Stewart.

"In a Sentimental Mood" makes use of a musical technique called contrapuntal or chromatic embellishment of static harmony. This is also sometimes referred to as a line cliché.

Source: Wikipedia

"Yes or no...
In or out...
Up or down...
Live or die...
Hero or coward...
Fight or give in...
I'll say it again to make sure you hear me--
The human life is made up of choices.
Live or die...
That's the important choice.
And it's not always...
In our hands."

- Patrick Dempsey as Derek Shepherd in Grey's Anatomy

"Art is not about art. Art is about life."

- Louise Bourgeois

"There's always something waiting at the end of the road. If you are not willing to see what it is, you probably shouldn't be out there in the first place."

- Clive Owen as Driver in The Follow

"Silence is so accurate"

- Mark Rothko

Cheek To Cheek
Fred Astaire

Heaven, I'm in Heaven,
And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak;
And I seem to find the happiness I seek
When we're out together dancing, cheek to cheek.

Heaven, I'm in Heaven,
And the cares that hang around me through the week
Seem to vanish like a gambler's lucky streak
When we're out together dancing, cheek to cheek.

Oh! I love to climb a mountain,
And to reach the highest peak,
But it doesn't thrill me half as much
As dancing cheek to cheek.

Oh! I love to go out fishing
In a river or a creek,
But I don't enjoy it half as much
As dancing cheek to cheek.

Dance with me
I want my arm about you;
The charm about you
Will carry me through to Heaven

I'm in Heaven,
and my heart beats so that I can hardly speak;
And I seem to find the happiness I seek
When we're out together dancing cheek to cheek.

From the Woods!!
James Vincent McMorrow

verse 1
from the woods, from the woods
they are coming from the woods
riding horses cloaked in grey
make their way, to my door
lay their boots upon my floor
wash their hands and start to pray
but i am gone, i am not there
i have followed mountain bears
to a cave of deepest tome
there i wait, by the mouth
as the smoke it flushes out
then i’ll slowly drag one home

chorus
all these things are ever lost
stillness has brought my love to cost

verse 2
from the woods, from the woods
once a vision from the woods
at a point between two tracks
bound by tape, and by wire
bruised and beaten in the fire
so the metals faded black
newer ropes, stronger nets
have us plumbing further depths
for the wolves we’ll never be
should we go, would we die
if the weight it was to slide
drag our secrets to the sea

chorus

bridge
i taste the sulphur on my breath
i see the blood pool on the step
the moon so thick, the wounds so fresh
and all is well……

outro
FROM THE WOODS, FROM THE WOODS, THEY ARE COMING FROM THE WOODS!!!!!
(AHHHHHHHHHHH)

"O innocent victims of Cupid,
Remember this terse little verse:
To let a fool kiss you is stupid,
To let a kiss fool you is worse."

- E. Y. Harburg

"Ridi, Pagliaccio,
sul tuo amore infranto!
Ridi del duol, che t'avvelena il cor!"

- Canio in Pagliacci by Ruggero Leoncavallo

"I do have a test today, that wasn't bull. It's on European socialism. I mean, really, what's the point? I'm not European. I don't plan on being European. So who gives a crap if they're socialists? They could be fascist anarchists, it still doesn't change the fact that I don't own a car."

- Matthew Broderick as Ferris Bueller in Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Bernini, Ecstasy of St. Theresa, 1647-52, Sculpture.
Cornaro Chapel, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome, Italy.

"St. Theresa was a nun who was canonized (made a Saint by the Church) because of the spiritual visions she experienced. She lived during the middle of the 16th century in Spain -- at the height of the Reformation. When we look at the Ecstasy of St. Theresa by Bernini we have to consider the entire space of the chapel. The chapel is called the Cornaro Chapel, after the Cornaro family who owned it and commissioned Bernini to sculpt St. Theresa. St. Theresa wrote several books in which she described her visions. This is her description of the event that Bernini depicts:

Beside me, on the left, appeared an angel in bodily form.... He was not tall but short, and very beautiful; and his face was so aflame that he appeared to be one of the highest rank of angels, who seem to be all on fire.... In his hands I saw a great golden spear, and at the iron tip there appeared to be a point of fire. This he plunged into my heart several times so that it penetrated to my entrails. When he pulled it out I felt that he took them with it, and left me utterly consumed by the great love of God. The pain was so severe that it made me utter several moans. The sweetness caused by this intense pain is so extreme that one cannot possibly wish it to cease, nor is one's soul content with anything but God. This is not a physical but a spiritual pain, though the body has some share in it—even a considerable share.

St. Theresa describes her intensely spiritual experience in very physical, even sexual terms. Why? We know that an important goal of Baroque art is to involve the viewer. Theresa is describing this in physical/sexual terms so that we can understand. After all, being visited by an angel and filled with the love of God is no small experience. How can we ordinary mortals hope to understand the intensity and passion of this experience except on our own terms?

The first thing that we notice when we walk into the chapel is that we have the scene of the Ecstasy of St. Theresa in front of us, and on either side of us, on the side walls, we see what looks like theater boxes with figures seated in them who are talking and gesturing to each other Perhaps they are kneeling in prayer as they watch the scene of the Ecstasy of St. Theresa. Who are these figures in the theater boxes? They are posthumous portraits of members of the Cornaro family (many of them were Cardinals). Behind them Bernini created a fabulous illusion of architecture -- a coffered barrel vault, doorway and columns. And, if we follow the metaphor of a theater, it feels as though we've got 10th row center orchestra seats -- the best seats in the house! And importantly, what's happened is that we have immediately become a part of the work of art. It surrounds us, and we are literally inside of it. This is, as we have seen, a typical feature of baroque art -- breaking down the barrier between the work and the viewer, to involve us more."

Source: smARThistory.org

Exhibit of B&W photographs of Michelangelo's La Pietà, taken by Robert Hupka.


"From: 'Guide to Saint Peter's Basilica'
This is probably the world's most famous sculpture of a religious subject. Michelangelo carved it when he was 24 years old, and it is the only one he ever signed. The beauty of its lines and expression leaves a lasting impression on everyone.

With this magnificent statue Michelangelo has given us a highly spiritual and Christian view of human suffering. Artists before and after Michelangelo always depicted the Virgin with the dead Christ in her arms as grief stricken, almost on the verge of desperation. Michelangelo, on the other hand, created a highly supernatural feeling.

As she holds Jesus' lifeless body on her lap, the Virgin's face emanates sweetness, serenity and a majestic acceptance of this immense sorrow, combined with her faith in the Redeemer. It seems almost as if Jesus is about to reawaken from a tranquil sleep and that after so much suffering and thorns, the rose of resurrection is about to bloom. As we contemplate the Pieta which conveys peace and tranquility, we can feel that the great sufferings of life and its pain can be mitigated.

Here, many Christians recall the price of their redemption and pray in silence. The words may be those of the "Salve Regina" or "Sub tuum presidium" or another prayer. After Peter's Tomb, the Pieta Chapel is the most frequently visited and silent place in the entire basilica.

It is said that Michelangelo had been criticized for having portrayed the Virgin Mary as too young since she actually must have been around 45-50 years old when Jesus died. He answered that he did so deliberately because the effects of time could not mar the virginal features of this, the most blessed of women. He also said that he was thinking of his own mother's face, he was only five when she died: the mother's face is a symbol of eternal youth."

Source: St. Peter's Basilica.org

Katya: [answering his question] What makes a man attractive? A scar.
Pierre Peders: Why?
Katya: Because... most women have one too.

- Dialogue between Katya (Sienna Miller) and Steve Buscemi (Pierre Peders) in Interview

"Y aquí es donde aparece Junius Pierpont Morgan. J.P. Morgan, el más grande y expeditivo financista de la historia. A Morgan se le ocurrió que si compraba montones de compañías diferentes dentro de una misma industria y las obligaba a trabajar juntas y no unas contra otras, podría expulsar del mercado a la competencia. De esa manera, ¡uno más uno es igual a tres! ¡Sí! Su idea, entonces, consistió en construir algo grande que dominara un mercado, y vernderlo por más de lo que pagaba por cada elemento. Hizo eso con US Steel. Después de que Carnegie se la vendió, Morgan se limitó a comprar toda la competencia".

- Pat en Mr. China de Tim Clissold

"Si no entras a la guarida del tigre,
¿cómo te apoderarás de sus cachorros?"

- Proverbio de la dinastía Han (202 a.C.-220 d.C.):
"Quien no arriesga, no gana"

"Blinded in one eye; can't hardly hear. I get twitches and shakes out of nowhere; always losing my line of thought. But you know what? God keeps reminding me I'm lucky to be alive.
[sniffles]"

- Ted Manson as Mr. Daws in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

"For what it's worth: it's never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again."

- Brad Pitt as Benjamin Button in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

"Your life is defined by its opportunities... even the ones you miss."

- Brad Pitt as Benjamin Button in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

"...en todo caso, había un solo túnel, oscuro y solitario: el mío".

-Castel en El túnel de Ernesto Sábato

Katy Perry
I Kissed A Girl

This was never the way I planned
Not my intention
I got so brave, drink in hand
Lost my discretion
It's not what, I'm used to
Just wanna try you on
I'm curious for you
Caught my attention

I kissed a girl and I liked it
The taste of her cherry ChapStick
I kissed a girl just to try it
I hope my boyfriend don't mind it
It felt so wrong
It felt so right
Don't mean I'm in love tonight
I kissed a girl and I liked it
I liked it

No, I don't even know your name
It doesn't matter
You're my experimental game
Just human nature
It's not what
Good girls do
Not how they should behave
My head gets so confused
Hard to obey

I kissed a girl and I liked it
The taste of her cherry ChapStick
I kissed a girl just to try it
I hope my boyfriend don't mind it
It felt so wrong
It felt so right
Don't mean I'm in love tonight
I kissed a girl and I liked it
I liked it

Us girls we are so magical
Soft skin, red lips, so kissable
Hard to resist so touchable
Too good to deny it
Ain't no big deal, it's innocent

I kissed a girl and I liked it
The taste of her cherry ChapStick
I kissed a girl just to try it
I hope my boyfriend don't mind it
It felt so wrong
It felt so right
Don't mean I'm in love tonight
I kissed a girl and I liked it
I liked it

"Last night I lay in bed looking up at the stars in the sky and I thought to myself, where the heck is the ceiling."

"Son, if you really want something in this life, you have to work for it. Now quiet! They're about to announce the lottery numbers."

- Homer Simpson

Origin of Love
Hedwig and the Angry Inch

When the earth was still flat,
And the clouds made of fire,
And mountains stretched up to the sky,
Sometimes higher,
Folks roamed the earth
Like big rolling kegs.
They had two sets of arms.
They had two sets of legs.
They had two faces peering
Out of one giant head
So they could watch all around them
As they talked; while they read.
And they never knew nothing of love.
It was before the origin of love.

The origin of love.

And there were three sexes then,
One that looked like two men
Glued up back to back,
Called the children of the sun.
And similar in shape and girth
Were the children of the earth.
They looked like two girls
Rolled up in one.
And the children of the moon
Were like a fork shoved on a spoon.
They were part sun, part earth
Part daughter, part son.

The origin of love.

Now the gods grew quite scared
Of our strength and defiance
And Thor said,
"I'm gonna kill them all
With my hammer,
Like I killed the giants."
And Zeus said, "No,
You better let me
Use my lightening, like scissors,
Like I cut the legs off the whales
And dinosaurs into lizards."
Then he grabbed up some bolts
And he let out a laugh,
Said, "I'll split them right down the middle.
Gonna cut them right up in half."
And then storm clouds gathered above
Into great balls of fire.

And then fire shot down
From the sky in bolts
Like shining blades
Of a knife.
And it ripped
Right through the flesh
Of the children of the sun
And the moon
And the earth.
And some Indian god
Sewed the wound up into a hole,
Pulled it round to our belly
To remind us of the price we pay.
And Osiris and the gods of the Nile
Gathered up a big storm
To blow a hurricane,
To scatter us away,
In a flood of wind and rain,
And a sea of tidal waves,
To wash us all away,
And if we don't behave
They'll cut us down again
And we'll be hopping round on one foot
And looking through one eye.

Last time I saw you
We had just split in two.
You were looking at me.
I was looking at you.
You had a way so familiar,
But I could not recognize,
Cause you had blood on your face;
I had blood in my eyes.
But I could swear by your expression
That the pain down in your soul
Was the same as the one down in mine.
That's the pain,
Cuts a straight line
Down through the heart;
We called it love.
So we wrapped our arms around each other,
Trying to shove ourselves back together.
We were making love,
Making love.
It was a cold dark evening,
Such a long time ago,
When by the mighty hand of Jove,
It was the sad story
How we became
Lonely two-legged creatures,
It's the story of
The origin of love.
That's the origin of love.

Raphael, Madonna of the Candelabra, ca. 1513, Oil on panel.
The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.

"Painted in Rome, this tondo (circular painting) of the Virgin and Child employs a rare motif of flanking candelabra that was derived from representations of ancient Roman emperors. Through this reference to the rulers of antiquity, Raphael alludes to Christ's and Mary's roles as the king and queen of Heaven. Raphael was famed for his graceful style. which combined the study of classical sculpture and nature. The chiaroscuro effects (modeling in light and shade) and gentle coloring give the figures a soft, delicate appearance. The painting relies heavily on the participation of Raphael's workshop, and the two angels certainly were done by his assistants. This was the first Madonna painted by Raphael to enter a North American collection."

Source: The Walters Art Museum

"... uno no puede saber quién lo va a hacer sufrir antes de que lo haga, y luego, cuando ya se puede ver al otro lado de la luna, es tarde y uno está adentro".

-El síndrome de Ulises de Santiago Gamboa

"The human heart has hidden treasures, in secret kept, in silence sealed. The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures, whose charms were broken if revealed."

-Inscription in Jane Eyre from April's father in Definitely, Maybe

Nobody's Home
Avril Lavigne

I couldn't tell you why she felt that way,
She felt it everyday.
And I couldn't help her,
I just watched her make the same mistakes again.

What's wrong, what's wrong now?
Too many, too many problems.
Don't know where she belongs, where she belongs.
She wants to go home, but nobody's home.
That's where she lies, broken inside.
With no place to go, no place to go, to dry her eyes.
Broken inside.

Open your eyes and look outside, find the reasons why.
You've been rejected, and now you can't find what you've left behind.
Be strong, be strong now.
Too many, too many problems.
Don't know where she belongs, where she belongs.
She wants to go home, but nobody's home.
It's where she lies, broken inside.
With no place to go, no place to go, to dry her eyes.
Broken inside.

Her feelings she hides.
Her dreams she can't find.
She's losing her mind.
She's fallen behind.
She can't find her place.
She's losing her faith.
She's falling from grace.
She's all over the place.
Yeah.

She wants to go home, but nobody's home.
It's where she lies, broken inside.
With no place to go, no place to go, to dry her eyes.
Broken inside.

She's lost inside, lost inside, oh oh.
She's lost inside, lost inside, oh oh.
Oh.

"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something."

-Plato

How To Save A Life
The Fray

Step one you say we need to talk
He walks you say sit down it's just a talk
He smiles politely back at you
You stare politely right on through
Some sort of window to your right
As he goes left and you stay right
Between the lines of fear and blame
You begin to wonder why you came

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

Let him know that you know best
Cause after all you do know best
Try to slip past his defense
Without granting innocence
Lay down a list of what is wrong
The things you've told him all along
And pray to God he hears you
And pray to God he hears you

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

As he begins to raise his voice
You lower yours and grant him one last choice
Drive until you lose the road
Or break with the ones you've followed
He will do one of two things
He will admit to everything
Or he'll say he's just not the same
And you'll begin to wonder why you came

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
How to save a life
How to save a life

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
How to save a life

"The people who suffer the most are those that do not know what they want."

-Ellen Pompeo as Meredith Grey in Grey's Anatomy

"Las pasiones son así, irracionales. Nos son dadas por algo superior que no vemos y nos gobierna".

-Salim en El síndrome de Ulises de Santiago Gamboa

"God doth have a sense of humor."

-Al Pacino as Lt. Col. Frank Slade in Scent of a Woman

Jacques-Louis David, The Intervention of the Sabine Women, 1799, Oil on canvas.
Louvre, Paris, France.

"David, the political activist, was imprisoned in 1794. He survived the political change, and while still in prison planned a return to history painting and started work on The Intervention of Sabine Women, a project that was to occupy him until 1799. This subject, from ancient Rome, was the aftermath of the rape of the Sabines when, to ensure the population growth of their city, Romulus and his Romans abducted the womenfolk of their neighbours, the Sabines. Three years passed before the Sabine men, led by Tatius, mounted a counterattack. For the first time in a history painting by David, the central figure is a woman, Hersilia, who forces herself between Romulus, her husband, on the right, and the Sabine Tatius, her father, on the left. Other women cling to the warriors and place themselves and their children between the opposing groups.

In this painting David contrasted the violence of the rape with the pacification of the intervention. The image of family conflict in the Sabines was a metaphor of the revolutionary process which had now culminated in peace and reconciliation. The painting was a tribute to Madame David, and a recognition of the power of women as peacemakers."

Source: Web Gallery of Art

"If a problem can be solved there is no use worrying about it. If it can't be solved, worrying will do no good."

-Dalai Lama in Seven Years in Tibet

You Could Be Happy
Snow Patrol

You could be happy
And I won't know
But you weren't happy
The day I watched you go

And all the things
That I wished I had not said
Are played on loops
Till it's madness in my head

Is it too late to remind you
How we were
But not our last days of silence
Screaming, blur

Most of what I remember
Makes me sure
I should have stopped you from walking
Out the door

You could be happy
I hope you are
You made me happier
Than I'd been by far

Somehow everything
I own smells of you
And for the tiniest moment
It's all not true

Do the things
That you always wanted to
Without me there to hold you back
Don't think, just do

More than anything
I want to see you go
Take a glorious bite
Out of the whole world

"Somos ángeles y demonios al mismo tiempo. No somos una sola persona, sino una contradicción, una complejidad de fuerzas que luchan dentro de nosotros".

"Somos cobardes y heroicos, santos y pecadores, buenos y malos. Todo depende de esa lucha de fuerzas".

-Maribel, alumna de Campo Elías, en Satanás de Mario Mendoza

"Risky thing, this nostalgia business."

-Wayne Riskedahl

Jan Vermeer, View of Delft, 1659-60, Oil on canvas.
The Mauritshuis, The Hague, Netherlands.

"El destino no tenía buenos sentimientos"

-La lectora de Sergio Álvarez

"La verdad ha de darse envuelta al hombre en mieles. Ha de hacérsela risueña y amable, para que el hombre, seducido por su apariencia externa, se acerque a ella, y la oiga sin saber que la oye"

-Jose Martí

Siempre me quedará
Bebe

Cómo decir que me parte en mil
las esquinitas de mis huesos,
que han caído los esquemas de mi vida
ahora que todo era perfecto.
Y algo más que eso,
me sorbiste el seso y me decían del peso
de este cuerpecito mío
que se ha convertío en río.
de este cuerpecito mío
que se ha convertío en río.

Me cuesta abrir los ojos
y lo hago poco a poco,
no sea que aún te encuentre cerca.
Me guardo tu recuerdo
como el mejor secreto,
que dulce fue tenerte dentro.

Hay un trozo de luz
en esta oscuridad
para prestarme calma.
El tiempo todo calma,
la tempestad y la calma,
el tiempo todo calma,
la tempestad y la calma.

Siempre me quedará
la voz suave del mar,
volver a respirar la lluvia que caerá
sobre este cuerpo y mojará
la flor que crece en mi,
y volver a reír
y cada día un instante volver a pensar en ti.
En la voz suave del mar,
en volver a respirar la lluvia que caerá
sobre este cuerpo y mojará
la flor que crece en mi,
y volver a reír
y cada día un instante volver a pensar en ti.

Cómo decir que me parte en mil
las esquinitas de mis huesos,
que han caído los esquemas de mi vida
ahora que todo era perfecto.
Y algo más que eso,
me sorbiste el seso y me decían del peso
de este cuerpecito mío
que se ha convertío en río.

Siempre me quedará
la voz suave del mar,
volver a respirar la lluvia que caerá
sobre este cuerpo y mojará
la flor que crece en mi,
y volver a reír
y cada día un instante volver a pensar en ti.
En la voz suave del mar,
en volver a respirar la lluvia que caerá
sobre este cuerpo y mojará
la flor que crece en mi,
y volver a reír
y cada día un instante volver a pensar en ti.

"It's time to kick ass and chew bubble gum, and I'm all outta gum!"

-Roddy Piper

Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Marat, 1793, Oil on canvas.
Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels, Belgium.

"This painting can be regarded as David's finest work, in which he has perfectly succeeded in immortalizing a contemporary political event as an image of social ideals. David's painting of Marat represents the peak of his involvement in the Revolution where invention, style, fervent belief and devotion combine to produce one of the most perfect examples of political painting. David presented the painting to the Convention on 14 November 1793.

Jean-Paul Marat saw himself as a friend of the people, he was a doctor of medicine and a physicist, and above all he was editor of the news-sheet Ami du peuple. He suffered from a skin disease and had to perform his business for the revolution in a soothing bath. This is where David shows him, in the moment after the pernicious murder by Charlotte Corday, a supporter of the aristocracy. David had seen his fellow party member and friend the day before. Under the impact of their personal friendship David created his painting "as if in a trance," as one of his pupils later reported.

David takes the viewer into Marat's private room, making him the witness of the moments immediately after the murder. Marat's head and arm have sunk down, but the dead hand still holds pen and paper. This snapshot of exactly the minute between the last breath and death in the bathroom had an immense impact at the time, and it still has the same effect today.

David has used a dark, immeasurable background to intensify the significance. The boldness of the high half of the room above the figure concentrates attention on the lowered head, and makes us all the more aware of the vacuum that has been created. The distribution of light here has been reversed from the usual practice, with dark above light. This is not only one of the most moving paintings of the time, but David has also created a secularised image of martyrdom. The painting has often, and rightly, been compared with Michelangelo's Pietà in Rome; in both the most striking element is the arm hanging down lifeless. Thus David has unobtrusively taken over the central image of martyrdom in Christianity to his image of Marat. Revolutionary and anti-religious as the painting of this period claimed to be, it is evident here that it very often had recourse to the iconography and pictorial vocabulary of the religious art of the past."

Source: Web Gallery of Art

"Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well."

-Josh Billings

Jan Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring, 1665, Oil on canvas.
The Mauritshuis, The Hague, Netherlands.

"As this girl stares out at the viewer with liquid eyes and parted mouth, she radiates purity, captivating all the gaze upon her. Her soft, smooth skin is as unblemished as the surface of her large tear-drop shaped earring - like a vision emanating from the darkness, she belongs to not specific time or place. Her exotic turban, wrapping her head in crystalline blue, is surmounted by a striking yellow fabric that falls behind her shoulders, lending an air of mystery to the image."

-Aurthur Wheelock, Johannes Vermeer, with contributions by Albert Blankert , Ben Broos and Jorgen Wadum, Washington, 1995.

Chasing Cars
Snow Patrol

We'll do it all
Everything
On our own

We don't need
Anything
Or anyone

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

I don't quite know
How to say
How I feel

Those three words
Are said too much
They're not enough

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Forget what we're told
Before we get too old
Show me a garden that's bursting into life

Let's waste time
Chasing cars
Around our heads

I need your grace
To remind me
To find my own

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Forget what we're told
Before we get too old
Show me a garden that's bursting into life

All that I am
All that I ever was
Is here in your perfect eyes, they're all I can see

I don't know where
Confused about how as well
Just know that these things will never change for us at all

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

"Adversity is like a strong wind. I don't mean just that it holds us back from places we might otherwise go. It also tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that afterward we see ourselves as we really are, and not merely as we might like to be."

-Sayuri in Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

"If you keep your destiny in mind, every moment in life becomes an opportunity for moving closer to it."

-Nobu Toshikazu in Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

Because of You
Kelly Clarkson

I will not make the same mistakes that you did
I will not let myself cause my heart so much misery
I will not break the way you did
You fell so hard
I've learned the hard way, to never let it get that far

Because of you
I never stray too far from the sidewalk
Because of you
I learned to play on the safe side
So I don't get hurt
Because of you
I find it hard to trust
Not only me, but everyone around me
Because of you
I am afraid

I lose my way
And it's not too long before you point it out
I cannot cry
Because I know that's weakness in your eyes
I'm forced to fake, a smile, a laugh
Every day of my life
My heart can't possibly break
When it wasn't even whole to start with

Because of you
I never stray too far from the sidewalk
Because of you
I learned to play on the safe side
So I don't get hurt
Because of you
I find it hard to trust
Not only me, but everyone around me
Because of you
I am afraid

I watched you die
I heard you cry
Every night in your sleep
I was so young
You should have known better than to lean on me
You never thought of anyone else
You just saw your pain
And now I cry
In the middle of the night
For the same damn thing

Because of you
I never stray too far from the sidewalk
Because of you
I learned to play on the safe side
So I don't get hurt
Because of you
I tried my hardest just to forget everything
Because of you
I don't know how to let anyone else in
Because of you
I'm ashamed of my life because it's empty
Because of you
I am afraid

Because of you
Because of you

"[S]ome people have difficulty telling the difference between something great and something they've simply heard of."

-Sayuri in Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

Is It Love

iiO

I never knew a love
A love that could be sweeter
No matter what my mind says
Your music gives me fever
The moment that we danced
Your arms felt like a cradle
And when you took my hand
I was no longer able
It never felt so right before
I need to be with you much more
I can't believe this kind of fate
We can runaway...
Is it love?
I'm always in a spell
Even when I'm sleeping
You're always on my mind
I hope that I'm not dreaming
If I am let me stay asleep
Don't wake me up I feel complete
I never want to feel it end
What a lovely moment
Is it love?
I wanna give you my love
All the time
I wanna make love to you
All the time
I wanna be right next to you
All the time
I wanna be in love with you
All the time
Is it love?

"Here's wishing you the bluest sky
And hoping something better comes tomorrow
Hoping all the verses rhyme,
And the very best of choruses too"

-Dar Williams

De parvis grandis acervus erit
(Traducción: De las cosas pequeñas se hacen las cosas más grandes)

Ángel de Dios (nombre del ángel de la guarda), bajo cuya custodia me puso el Señor con infinita y amorosa piedad. A mí, que soy tu encomendado, alúmbrame o mi Ángel esta noche, guárdame, defiéndeme y gobiérname. Alumbra cada uno de mis actos y no dejes que la tentación pueda llegar a cegarme.
Amén.

"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

-George Santayana

Gracias Señor por todas las bendiciones que me has dado, por mi salud, por mi familia, por mis hijos, por mi trabajo, por mis amigos, por TODO Señor.
Dales la oportunidad a los que no te conocen, a los que te olvidaron, que te conozcan y otórgales también tu bondad y misericordia.
Amen.

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--/ I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference."

-Robert Frost

"Those trying to explain pictures are as a rule completely mistaken."

-Pablo Picasso

"It's in the struggle that our spirit comes forth."

The Blower's Daughter
Damien Rice

And so it is
Just like you said it would be
Life goes easy on me
Most of the time
And so it is
The shorter story
No love, no glory
No hero in her sky

I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes...

And so it is
Just like you said it should be
We'll both forget the breeze
Most of the time
And so it is
The colder water
The blower's daughter
The pupil in denial

I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes...

Did I say that I loathe you?
Did I say that I want to
Leave it all behind?

I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind...
My mind...my mind...
'Til I find somebody new

"Better a witty fool than a foolish wit."

-William Shakespeare

"El amor es cuestión de coordinación. De nada sirve encontrar a la persona indicada si no es el momento adecuado".

"When you don't take "no" for an answer, there's still a chance you'll get what you want."

-Tony Leung Chiu Wai como Chow Mo Wan en 2046

"Los amigos son aquellos que acuden a uno cuando no tienen problemas".

-Su Alteza Serenísima Principe de Mónaco Rainiero III

"The 20th century was the century of establishing, defending and clarifying borders. The 21st century is how you overcome borders, how do you cross borders, while keeping your identity."

-Carlos Ghosn

"Sin osadía no hay gloria".

-Jeffrey J. Fox

"No hay nada que otorgue más ventaja a una persona sobre otra que conservar la serenidad y la ecuanimidad en todas las circunstancias".

-Thomas Jefferson

"The unexamined life is not worth living."

-Socrates

"With great power comes great responsibility."

-Cliff Robertson as Uncle Ben in Spider-man

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

-Benjamin Franklin

"The person who writes for fools is always sure of a large audience."

-Arthur Schopenhauer

Yellow
Coldplay

Look at the stars; look how they shine for you
And everything you do
Yeah, they were all yellow

I came along; I wrote a song for you
And all the things you do
And it was called yellow

So then I took my turn
Oh what a thing to have done
And it was all yellow

Your skin, oh yeah your skin and bones
Turn into something beautiful
D'you know?
You know I love you so
You know I love you so

I swam across; I jumped across for you
Oh what a thing to do
'Cos you were all yellow

I drew a line; I drew a line for you
Oh what a thing to do
And it was all yellow

And your skin, oh yeah your skin and bones
Turn into something beautiful
D'you know?
For you I bleed myself dry
For you I bleed myself dry

It's true
Look how they shine for you
Look how they shine for you
Look how they shine for…
Look how they shine for you
Look how they shine for you
Look how they shine

Look at the stars
Look how they shine for you
And all the things that you do

"To whom much is given, much is expected" (Luke 12:48)

El Vaquero and his Chihuahua

El Vaquero (The Mexican Cowboy) and his Chihuahua, Chilito, are camping in the desert. He sets up their tent and both are soon asleep. Some hours later, El Vaquero wakes his faithful friend.

"Chilito, look up at the sky and tell me what you see."

Chilito replies, "I see millions of stars, señor."

"What does that tell you?" asks El Vaquero.

Chilito ponders for a minute.

"Astronomically speaking, it tells me there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets.

Astrologically, it tells me that Saturn is in Leo.

Chronologically, it appears to be approximately quarter past three.

Theologically, it's evident the Lord is all-powerful, and we are small and insignificant.

Meteorologically, it seems we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. What does it tell you, señor?"

El Vaquero is silent for a moment, and then says, "Chilito, you pendejo. Someone has stolen our tent!"

"The greatest battles of life are fought out daily in the silent chambers of the soul."

-David McKay

George W. Bush visita un colegio estadounidense. Entra en un aula, siempre acompañado por sus guardaespaldas. Entonces empieza un discurso sobre Norteamérica y el orgullo de ser estadounidense. Al final pregunta:

-¿Quién tiene dudas?

Al fondo de la sala, un niño se levanta:

-¡Yo! Hola, soy Jimmy y me gustaría hacer 3 preguntas:
Primera, ¿por qué hizo fraude en las elecciones?
Segunda, ¿por qué no evitó el 11 de septiembre?
Tercera, ¿por qué está intentando provocar una guerra contra Irak?

En ese momento, ¡Rrrrrringgggggggggg! Suena el timbre del recreo y todos salen.

Cuando vuelven del recreo, Bush continúa:

-Bien, ¿quién tiene más dudas?

Otro chico al fondo de la sala se levanta y dice:

-¡Yo! Hola, soy Tommy y me gustaría hacer 5 preguntas:
Primera, ¿por qué hizo fraude en las elecciones?
Segunda, ¿por qué no evitó el 11 de septiembre?
Tercera, ¿por qué está intentando provocar una guerra contra Irak?
Cuarta, ¿por qué sonó 20 minutos antes el timbre del recreo?
Quinta, ¿dónde está Jimmy?

"Lo bueno sería que al final se descubriese que los molinos no son molinos, sino gigantes".

-Ramón Gómez de la Serna

"Always forgive your enemies... nothing annoys them so much."

-Oscar Wilde

"El pudor inventó el vestido para gozar más de la desnudez".

-Carlos Dossi

"La noche es joven y la vida es bella".

-Adagio popular

"In our ever-growing pursuit of the self --self-expression,
self-development, self-actualization, and self-fulfillment--
the social has become increasingly problematic."

-David Popenoe, Life Without a Father

"La plata no lo es todo, pero también ayuda".

-Anónimo

"Estudia y no serás cuando crecido ni el esclavo servil de los tiranos, ni el juguete vulgar de las pasiones".

-Elías Calisto Pompa

Increíble que en un sitio de tanta belleza haya tanto estrés, dolor y sufrimiento. La vida nos brinda espejismos como éste...detrás de todo sólo se esconden perfidias, desengaños, mentiras y más mentiras.

Hooked on a Feeling
B.J. Thomas

I can't stop this feelin' deep inside of me
Girl, you just don't realize what you do to me
When ya hold me in your arms so tight
You let me know everything's all right
I-I-I, I'm hooked on a feelin'
High on believin' that you're in love with me
Lips are sweet as candy, the taste stays on my mind
Girl, you keep me thirsty for another cup of wine
I got it bad for you, girl but I don't need a cure
I'll just stay addicted and hope I can endure
All the good love when we're all alone
Keep it up, girl, yeah ya turn me on
I-I-I, I'm hooked on a feelin'
High on believin' that you're in love with me
All the good love when we're all alone
Keep it up, girl, yeah ya turn me on
I-I-I, I'm hooked on a feelin'
I'm high on believin' that you're in love with me

Paul Cornoyer, The Plaza After Rain, 1910, Oil on canvas.
The Saint Louis Art Museum, St Louis, MO.

"Impressionism followed the lead of the Barbizon School and emphasized open-air compositions over studio work. If the painter had to work quickly and with spontaneity in order to capture the ever-changing light of a landscape scene, a street scene demanded even greater speed. This speed of production created an even sketchier and more abbreviated rendering of the subject. The resulting work was often a visual poem, such as seen in Cornoyer's The Plaza After Rain. Not only does this painting offer an impressionistic perspective of a misty spring day, it also captures the mood. The viewer is transported to time, location, and emotion.

The Plaza After Rain not only fulfills the typically impressionistic goal of conveying the effects of light and atmosphere of the scene, it also extends a sympathetic and human view of city dwellers as they negotiate the city's canyons. Whereas the viewer initially sees a painting with muted palette and soft hues, a closer inspection reveals shocks of vibrant color: the bright green of the young leaves that frame the top of the painting, the rosy light reflected off the buildings in the background, and the intense red of the child's scarf. Through the use of color, the eye is slowly drawn from the sky to the figures below. The painting gradually reveals an authentic human moment. We share in this moment; we feel the warm spring rain, we smell the fresh air, we are there. In another painter's hand, or through a less poetic eye, this scene might seem somber, even drab. Cornoyer offers the inherent joy and hopefulness of an early spring day in the city. Ultimately, Cornoyer gives the viewer the gift of visual poetry and the quiet beauty of a misty day."

-Brian P. Pace, The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Your Song
Ewan Mcgregor & Alessandro Safina
Moulin Rouge Soundtrack

My gift is my song
And this one's for you
And you can tell everybody
That this is your song
It may be quite simple
But now that it's done
Hope you don't mind
I hope you don't mind
That I put down in words
How wonderful life is now you're in the world

Sat on the roof
And I kicked off the moss
Well some of these verses well
They got me quite cross
But the sun's been kind
While I wrote this song
It's for people like you that
Keep it turned on

So excuse me forgetting
But these things I do
You see I've forgotten
If they're green or they're blue
Anyway the thing is what I really mean
Yours are the sweetest eyes I've ever seen

(Allesandro Safina: opera)

And you can tell everybody
This is your song
It may be quite simple
Now that it's done
I hope you don't mind
I hope you don't mind that I put down in words

How wonderful life is now you're in the world
I hope you don't mind
I hope you don't mind that I put down in words
How wonderful life is now you're in the world

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, "If GM had kept up with the technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon."

In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating, "If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.

2. Every time they painted new lines on the road, you would have to buy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

5. Only one person at a time could use the car unless you bought "CarNT," but then you would have to buy more seats.

6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive-but it would only run on five percent of the roads.

7. The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "general protection fault" warning light.

8. The airbag system would ask, "Are you sure?" before deploying.

9. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, you car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the antenna.

10. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Rand McNally Road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they neither need nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50 percent or more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the Justice Department.

11. Every time GM introduced a new car, car buyers would have to learn to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

12. You'd have to press the "start" button to turn the engine off.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Souvenir de Mortefontaine, 1864, Oil on canvas.
Louvre Museum, Paris.

"The park of Mortefontaine, north of Paris, was laid out “à l'anglaise” in the eighteenth century and offered inspiration to Corot for a great many related landscape paintings. One of these, Souvenir de Mortefontaine, which he sent to the Salon in 1864, was purchased by Napoleon III and is now in the Louvre."

"Comparison of the various paintings evoking the park of Mortefontaine and the sketches Corot made for them reveal much about how the artist created his landscapes. To Corot, landscape motifs were compositional building blocks in a carefully constructed design which he arranged almost abstractly, working to harmonize line and shape, tonalities and silhouettes, distance and foreground, solid mass and reflections. [The paintings of the Mortefontaine series] demonstrate the carefully designed substructure underlying these intensely poetic, often romantic, images of nature. Corot’s work, while rooted in the classicism of Claude and Poussin, led directly to Monet and developments in late nineteenth-century landscape painting."

-The Frick Collection, New York.

"The bad thing about dinner is that I don't have anything to look forward to until breakfast next morning."

-Cookie Monster

"The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility."

-Albert Einstein

dichotomy n, pl -mies [Gk dichotomia, fr. dichotomos] (1610)
1 : a division or the process of dividing into two esp. mutually exclusive or contradictory groups or entities
2 : the phase of the moon or an inferior planet in which half its disk appears illuminated
3 : a : BIFURCATION: esp : repeated bifurcation (as of a plant's stem)
b : a system of brancing in which the main axis forks repeatedly into two branches
c : branching of an ancestral line into two equal diverging branches
4 : something with seemingly contradictory qualities

Source: Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition.

Wish You Were Here
Pink Floyd

So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell,
Blue skys from pain.
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?

And did they get you to trade
Your heros for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange
A walk on part in the war
For a lead role in a cage?

How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl,
Year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found?
The same old fears.
Wish you were here.