Album Anniversary - May 31, 2015

Today is the 30th anniversary of two albums, Hunting High and Low, the debut album from A-ha, and Wide Awake in America, the EP by U2.

Video: "Take on Me"

Video: "Bad (Live)"

May 31, 2015

Good Morning! Here are your daily birthday quotations...

Fred Allen (1894 – 1956):

“If I could get my membership fee back I’d resign from the human race.”

and

“I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.”

Walt Whitman (1819 – 1892):

“What is that you express in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.”

and

“Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself; I am large -- I contain multitudes.”

and

“We were together. I forget the rest.”

and

“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”

Adrian Tomine (1974 - ):

“If you were to go back in time and talk to the people who invented cartooning, and were doing it for newspapers, and told them that there were going to be guys who were going to do twenty-four-page long stories, they would think that was a strange use of the medium. And if you then said, they’re going to try and inject that with a singular vision and personal experience and do six-hundred-page long stories—I mean, their heads would have exploded. We might see when we look back that there were a few exceptional cases who could take this form and mutate it into something that it really wasn’t meant to do, and could do it with extreme grace and insight.”

May 30, 2015

Good Morning! Here are your daily birthday quotations...

Mikhail Bakunin (1814 – 1876):

“No theory, no ready-made system, no book that has ever been written will save the world. I cleave to no system. I am a true seeker.”

and

“By striving to do the impossible, man has always achieved what is possible. Those who have cautiously done no more than they believed possible have never taken a single step forward.”

Idina Menzel (1971 - ):

“My younger sister had kids before I did, and managed to earn a master's degree while raising them as a single parent. Now she's a brilliant second-grade teacher. I'm in awe of her ability to juggle everything and still be a great mother.”

Tom Morello (1964 - ):

“A musician's or artist's responsibility is a simple one, and that is, through your music to tell the truth.”

Benny Goodman (1909 – 1986):

“One way or the other, if you want to find reasons why you shouldn't keep on, you'll find 'em. The obstacles are all there; there are a million of 'em.”

and

“If a guy's got it, let him give it. I'm selling music, not prejudice.”

Countee Cullen (1903 – 1946):

“Your love to me was like an unread book.”

and

“There is no secret to success except hard work and getting something indefinable which we call ‘the breaks.’ In order for a writer to succeed, I suggest three things – read and write – and wait.”

Album Anniversary - May 29, 2015

Today is the 25th anniversary of Bloodletting, the third album from Concrete Blonde.

Video: "Joey"

May 29, 2015

Good Morning! Here are your daily birthday quotations...

G.K. Chesterton (1874 – 1936):

“The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.”

and

“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”

and

“Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.”

and

“There are no uninteresting things, only uninterested people.”

and

“There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.”

and

“The great Gaels of Ireland are the men that God made mad, For all their wars are merry and all their songs are sad.”

Bob Hope (1903 – 2003):

“People who throw kisses are hopelessly lazy.”

and

“I have seen what a laugh can do. It can transform almost unbearable tears into something bearable, even hopeful.”

T.H. White (1906 – 1964):

“The bravest people are the ones who don’t mind looking like cowards.”

and

“The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”

and

“Perhaps we all give the best of our hearts uncritically--to those who hardly think about us in return.”

and

“Education is experience, and the essence of experience is self-reliance.”

and

“The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and to watch someone else do it wrong without comment.”

John F. Kennedy (1917 – 1963):

“The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger--but recognize the opportunity.”

and

“The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.”

and

“If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people-their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties-someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal", then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal.”

and

“We must find time to stop and thank the people who make a difference in our lives.”

and

“A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on. Ideas have endurance without death.”

and

“History is a relentless master. It has no present, only the past rushing into the future. To try to hold fast is to be swept aside.”