A Well Turned Phrase

Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today.

— James Dean

The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.
—Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage (1895)

I will tell you in a few words who I am: lover of the hummingbird that darts to the flower beyond the rotted sill where my feet are propped; lover of bright needlepoint and the bright stitching fingers of humorless old ladies bent to their sweet and infamous designs; lover of parasols made from the same puffy stuff as a young girl’s underdrawers; s

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.
—William Gibson, Neuromancer (1984)

Buy the ticket, take the ride.

—Hunter S. Thompson

It is useful to read certain authors before one realizes – either through one’s own or others’ critical diktats – that they should not in fact be read. Kipling floats in and out of fashion. When I encountered him I imagine he was pretty much out, but Just So Stories and the Jungle Books (titles whose destruction by Disney’s huns

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.

― Friedrich Nietzsche

Stephen is out of action this week, laid low by some unknown virus. And, like a lot of people, he’s gone into a temporary hibernation — a pestilent torpor, punctuated by groans, sugary treats, and Apple TV. He’s retreated into the warm, snuggly comfort of his sick cave. A place, I imagine, not unlike a Neanderthal’s home.

—Big Think

 It is officially the first day of fall. The leaves may have barely begun to turn, but, as Charlotte Mendelson reminds us, “ ’Tis the season of mist, nature’s Photoshop; trenchcoats; barley; licensed melancholy; munificence; and glorious rot.” It is a time when new growth ceases and gardens begin to wilt and shrivel. “After the

Post Halloween School Instructions

I know the day after Halloween is extra hard when you're trying to get your kids up and ready for school. Because dressing a hungover, raging pterodactyl is not fun. But PLEASE do NOT bribe the groggy elementary goblins with trick or treat candy and send them to school with two fistfuls of Pixy Stix and a wish. We