Creation

Fri, 5 Sep 2008 22:26:56 -0400

“All you have to do is open up a little bit and then you'll be experiencing a part of that person's soul. It's just there -- in the presence of a beautiful painting, a creation, something created by someone else. This is insight into not who they are physically, but who they are on this other plane, so, what makes it magic, always, is to hear music performed live.”

- Bill Conti, b.1942
Composer

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Susan Savia at Hanover's (PA) Merlin's Coffee.

Live

Thu, 4 Sep 2008 21:10:16 -0400

“I never tried to prove nothing, just wanted to give a good show. My life has always been my music, it's always come first, but the music ain't worth nothing if you can't lay it on the public. The main thing is to live for that audience, 'cause what you're there for is to please the people.”

- Louis Armstrong, 1901-1971
American Jazz Trumpeter

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There's always something special about live music, shared between an audience and performer. Regardless of the venue, big or small, the communication is unique and shouldn't be undervalued.

Susan Savia at Hanover's (PA) Merlin's Coffee.

Nature’s White

Wed, 3 Sep 2008 20:30:26 -0400

“Words and feathers are easily scattered, but not easily gathered up”

- Anonymous

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This week's Geographic Composition theme of "Black and White in Real Life" easily led to this feather. While I took several very sharp photographs of it with my macro lens, I really wanted to do something different with it. I haven't been using my Lensbaby lens much lately, so I put it to use in this shot.

You can see the other entries by clicking here.

As always, thanks to Jason for sponsoring and hosting the series.

Nature’s Peace

Tue, 2 Sep 2008 11:53:36 -0400

“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.”

- John Muir, 1838-1914
Naturalist and Author

Trailblazer

Mon, 1 Sep 2008 19:16:40 -0400

"Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."

- Muriel Strode

Mysterious Tune

Mon, 1 Sep 2008 19:15:23 -0400

“Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for insects as well as for the stars. Human beings, vegetables or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance.”

- Albert Einstein, 1879-1955
Nobel Prize Winner for Physics in 1921

Poetry of Earth

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 20:52:56 -0400

On the Grasshopper and Cricket
by John Keats, 1795–1821

The poetry of earth is never dead:
  When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
  And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the Grasshopper’s—he takes the lead
  In summer luxury,—he has never done
  With his delights; for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
  On a lone winter evening, when the frost
    Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The Cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever,
  And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
    The Grasshopper’s among some grassy hills.

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Textured photograph, Hanover, Pennsylvania

On the Post

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 20:52:12 -0400

"What nature delivers to us is never stale. Because what nature creates has eternity in it."

- Isaac Bashevis Singer

Grasshopper

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 21:19:42 -0400

Revealed
by Harry Lyman Koopman

Now, on a sudden, I know it, the secret, the secret of life.
Why, the very green of the grass in the fields with betrayal is rife!
The whirr of the grasshopper by the wayside proclaims it to all;
’T is unrolled as a scroll to all eyes in the curve of the waterfall.
But, for me, I can only wonder at mortals,—the secret out;
For they see, hear, taste, smell, feel not what Heaven reveals all about.