Film Anniversary - October 27, 2015

Today is the 60th anniversary of Rebel Without a Cause, the Nicholas Ray directed film featuring James Dean in his most celebrated role.

Album Anniversary - October 27, 2015

Today is the 40th anniversary of Nighthawks at the Diner, the first live album from Tom Waits.

Today's Words of Wisdom - October 27, 2015

Today is the birthday of the following people:

Maxine Hong Kingston (1940 - ):

“You can't eat straight A's.”

and

“Do the right thing by whoever crosses your path. Those coincidental people are your people.”

and

“I learned to make my mind large, as the universe is large, so that there is room for paradoxes.”

Aron Ralston (1975 - ):

“Everything happens for a reason, and part of that beauty of life is that we're not allowed to know those reasons for certain.”

and

“Perhaps it’s time, I muse, to close those chapters and remember the enduring lesson of my entrapment: that relationships, not accomplishments, are what’s important in life.”

Steve Almond (1967 - ):

“We need books...because we are all, in the private kingdoms of our hearts, desperate for the company of a wise, true friend.”

and

“Art is what happens when things don't work out, when you're licking your wounds. Art is, to a larger extent than people would like to think, a productive licking of the wounds.”

and

“The single biggest reason I got my stories taken in various literary magazines - and I want to stress this - is because I refused to give up. Period.”

Simon Le Bon (1958 - ):

"My kids love vinyl, I had to teach them how to put the needle on the records. Now they're worried about scratching the records, but it's incredible!"

Fran Lebowitz (1950 - ):

“Think before you speak. Read before you think.”

and

“As a teenager you are at the last stage in your life when you will be happy to hear that the phone is for you.”

and

“Romantic love is mental illness. But it's a pleasurable one. It's a drug. It distorts reality, and that's the point of it. It would be impossible to fall in love with someone that you really saw. ”

John Cleese (1939 - ):

“He who laughs most, learns best”

and

“If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play”

and

“Because, as we all know, it’s easier to do trivial things that are urgent than it is to do important things that are not urgent, like thinking. And it’s also easier to do little things we know we can do than to start on big things that we’re not so sure about.”

and

“Nothing will stop you being creative more effectively as the fear of making a mistake.”

Sylvia Plath (1932 - 1963):

“And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”

and

“Can you understand? Someone, somewhere, can you understand me a little, love me a little? For all my despair, for all my ideals, for all that - I love life. But it is hard, and I have so much - so very much to learn.”

Dylan Thomas (1914 – 1953):

“A good poem is a contribution to reality. The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it. A good poem helps to change the shape of the universe, helps to extend everyone's knowledge of himself and the world around him.”

and

“Though lovers be lost, love shall not; And death shall have no dominion.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858 – 1919):

“Believe you can and you're halfway there.”

and

“If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.”

and

“I am a part of everything that I have read.”

and

“No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care”

and

“Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don't have the strength.”

Today's Words of Wisdom - October 26, 2015

Today is the birthday of the following people:

Pat Conroy (1945 - ):

“The world of literature has everything in it, and it refuses to leave anything out. I have read like a man on fire my whole life because the genius of English teachers touched me with the dazzling beauty of language. Because of them I rode with Don Quixote and danced with Anna Karenina at a ball in St. Petersburg and lassoed a steer in "Lonesome Dove" and had

nightmares about slavery in "Beloved" and walked the streets of Dublin in "Ulysses" and made up a hundred stories in the Arabian nights and saw my mother killed by a baseball in "A Prayer for Owen Meany." I've been in ten thousand cities and have introduced myself to a hundred thousand strangers in my exuberant reading career, all because I listened to my fabulous English teachers and soaked up every single thing those magnificent men and women had to give. I cherish and praise them and thank them for finding me when I was a boy and presenting me with the precious gift of the English language.”

Natalie Merchant (1963 - ):

“let me have a look inside these eyes while I'm learning

please don't hide them just because of tears”

and

“you've been so kind and generous

I don't know how you keep on giving

for your kindness I'm in debt to you

for your selflessness, my admiration

and for everything you've done

you know I'm bound...

I'm bound to thank you for it”

Hillary Clinton (1947 - ):

"We are here to advance the cause of women and to advance the cause of democracy and to make it absolutely clear that the two are inseparable. There cannot be true democracy unless women's voices are heard. There cannot be true democracy unless women are given the opportunity to take responsibility for their own lives."

Schoolboy Q (1986 - ):

“I think we - the way to stop anything violent or anything wrong is by really just paying attention to your own circle. You only can help the world by helping the people next to you.”

Bootsy Collins (1951 - ):

“Funk is the absence of any and everything you can think of, but the very essence of all that is. And saying that, I'm saying funk is anything that we create in our minds that we want to do, what we want to be, but we don't have the resources.”

and

“We are all human and I want to relate that message to all people.”

Beryl Markham (1902 – 1986):

“A map says to you.

Read me carefully, follow me closely, doubt me not...

I am the earth in the palm of your hand.”

and

“If a man has any greatness in him, it comes to light, not in one flamboyant hour, but in the ledger of his daily work.”

and

“The way to find a needle in a haystack is to sit down.”

Today's Words of Wisdom - October 25, 2015

Today is the birthday of the following people:

Zadie Smith (1975 - ):

“The past is always tense, the future perfect.”

and

“The greatest lie ever told about love is that it sets you free.”

and

"We are so convinced of the goodness of ourselves, and the goodness of our love, we cannot bear to believe that there might be something more worthy of love than us, more worthy of worship. Greeting cards routinely tell us everybody deserves love. No. Everybody deserves clean water. Not everybody deserves love all the time.”

Katy Perry (1984 - ):

“Too many girl rush into relationships because of the fear of being single, then start making compromises and losing their identity. Don't do that.”

John Berryman (1914 – 1972):

“You should always be trying to write a poem you are unable to write, a poem you lack the technique, the language, the courage to achieve. Otherwise you're merely imitating yourself, going nowhere, because that's always easiest.”

and

“We must travel in the direction of our fear.”

Georges Bizet (1838 – 1875):

“Love is rebellious bird that nobody can tame, and it's all in vain to call it if it chooses to refuse.”

Pablo Picasso (1881 – 1973):

“I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”

and

“Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.”

and

“Action is the foundational key to all success.”

and

“Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth.”

Anne Tyler (1941 - ):

“People always call it luck when you've acted more sensibly than they have.”

and

“I've never quite believed that one chance is all I get.”