Thinking Deep Thoughts...

Well, I have gone and done it again, or should I say, NOT done it again. Too, too much time has passed since my last posting.

After years of intermittent checking on the website, I finally subscribed to The Writer's Almanac, a delightful daily brief written by Garrison Keillor.

I have listened faithfully to Keillor on Saturday nights for about 30 years. He is a tender spirit, a gracious man, and an excellent writer. Although, I must say he must not be the best husband, as he seems to have a string of ex-wives in his wake.

In the mornings I let the doggie out for a tinkle, wind all the clocks, pour my coffee, and then curl up in front of the PC to check my email.

Having only subscribed a few weeks ago, I am still a little surprised every morning when I see the email from them. "Oh!" and I anxiously click on it. I am never disappointed.

Reading The Writer's Almanac is a little like a vacation from the world. He takes me into a world of great people who wrote great things. Or of tragic people who wrote tragic things. Or of painters or scientists with great imaginations. He always includes some little-known fact about them and some trauma or joy or idiosyncracy.

The entire trip takes me about 2 minutes and I feel more literate, more in touch with people who wrote well and accomplished great things.

Here are some things I learned recently:

Alexis de Tocqueville was only 25 when he visited America. His first book was a collaboration with Gustave de Beaumont, whose work was not quite as successful as de Tocqueville's. Their book explored our prison system in the early 19th century, gee, I know nothing about that -- I wonder what they were like? ... and then returned back to Britain to continue to write about the States. Beaumont wrote about slavery and our hypocrisy, Land of the Free vs. slaves, and de Tocqueville wrote about, well, about everything American. At one time, he said,

"An American will build a house in which to pass his old age and sell it before
the roof is on; he will plant a garden and rent it just as the trees are coming
into bearing … he will take up a profession and leave it, settle in one place
and soon go off elsewhere."

And I just about believe he was right. I am trying not to be such a Now Girl.

Lawrence Raab wrote an achingly poignant poem about Ralph Waldo Emerson, who apparently suffered from Alzheimer's in his later years. The poem is entitled, "A Friend's Umbrella," and is definitely worth the time. It appeared in TWA on Wednesday, 29.July.2009.

Astronomer Maria Mitchell discovered a comet in 1847. She was a professor of astronomy at Vassar College. She wrote, "The more we see, the more we are capable of seeing." Take this thought out of astronomy and to the philosphic realm, and it makes perfect sense. The more insight you use into what people are really saying and thinking, the more you can see. It makes perfect sense to me. I wonder which way she really meant it?

And Francis Scott Key, whose birthday is today, wrote a beautiful, and sadly optimistic verse of the national anthem which we never sing:

"And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wiped out their foul footstep's pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. "

Please visit the site and subscribe for yourself. --OR-- you can subscribe to the podcast and listen to Keillor read it for you himself, in his deep and doleful voice. As I said earlier, I am never disappointed.