Friday, February 22, 2008

 

On thinking big

Looking for something on my desk (really, it's an excavation, requiring a major grant for archeological research from the federal government...) I came upon a quote I had saved from, of all places, Publisher's Weekly.

Herbert Kohl, a teacher and education writer, was interviewed about his new book, Painting Chinese, which describes his experience taking a Chinese landscape painting class as a 60-year-old surrounded by kindergarteners:

It's wonderful accepting that your goals will never be completed if they're big enough, and that it's worth making them so big that you leave some unfinished so that other people can pick them up after you.

Right on.

Comments:
I lo'e the stishie
O' earth in space
Breengin' by
At a haliket pace.

A wech o' hills
Gangs wallopin' Owre,
Syne a whummlin' sea
Wi' a gallus glower.

The West whuds doon
Like the pigs at Gadara,
But the East's aye there
Like a sow at farrow.
 
MacDiarmad, eh?

Well, I lo'e the stishie
O'earth

too
 
Of course. Do you recall it, or did you have to look it up? I was introduced to this poem in high school and found it amusing enough at the time that I memorized it.

Also, this:

An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.

The anatomical references seemed very intriguing at the time...
 
I had to look up the MacDiarmad... But his coy mistress, yes? How could I forget, in high school...
 
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