April 10, 2011

Someone lent us a cottage in Harsfordshire. I was sitting in a sort of parlor there one day, writing. And suddenly I saw someone run past the window, along the lane outside. With shorts on, white shirt and so on. And it seemed to me such an unusual image... that I wrote down at the top of a sheet of paper, 'the loneliness of the long-distance runner.' I didn't know where he had come from, I didn't know where he was going. He was simply a sort of ...vision, floating by the window. And I put the line away, I thought I was going to write a poem with this sort of line in it. It seemed rather a nice line."
- Alan Sillitoe, author of The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner



Alan Sillitoe also wrote an Autobiography entitled Life Without Armour which is only available on the used book market. Will try to obtain one from Better World Books.



Also on the reading list is Alexandra Horowitz' Inside of a Dog.

March 27, 2011

The American Cancer Society Daffodil Days always has my participation.

"Daffodils" (1804)

I WANDER'D lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

By William Wordsworth (1770-1850).



Alexandra Horowitz has some cool Dog Science insights. Video is from AOL Splash page.