Two employees of Boston Properties demonstrated proper safe distancing in an elevator at the Prudential Center in Boston. Going Up? Not So Fast: Strict New Rules to Govern Elevator Culture – The New York Times
Repeat After Me:
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Previous post: A Whale of a Tale
Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun
Die blind and blacken to the heart:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained
thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems.
— Robinson Jeffers
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o’clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.
— Eliot
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this
air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
— Walt Whitman
The scientists are in terror
and the European mind stops
Wyndham Lewis chose blindness
rather than have his mind stop.
Night under wind mid garofani,
the petals are almost still
Mozart, Linnaeus, Sulmona,
When one’s friends hate each other
how can there be peace in the world?
Their asperities diverted me in my green time.
A blown husk that is finished
but the light sings eternal
a pale flare over marshes
where the salt hay whispers to tide’s change
Time, space,
neither life nor death is the answer.
And of man seeking good,
doing evil.
In meiner Heimat
where the dead walked
and the living were made of cardboard.
![That Was the Whopper Weekend That Was [Illustrated]](https://americandigest.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/welcometohell-150x150.jpg "That Was the Whopper Weekend That Was [Illustrated]")
Gerard Van der Leun
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Get out of the big city?
Got that done many years ago.
I have just never understood why anyone would want to live in a city. I was reminded of this the other night when I heard a siren several miles away, a rarity around here. I have been in cities at night time (but not for a long time) and the white noise would drive me insane. Maybe that why city slickers ARE insane?
70-80-early 90’s when nyc was broke and broken it absolutely would not let you have a bad time.
I live in Oklahoma, the freest State in the union. Here we have cattle, pigs, oil, natural gas, corn, wheat, poultry, tens of thousands of veterans with combat training—and lots of guns. When the “spicy times” arrive, we are already well-placed to survive, even to thrive. How many of these things does New York City have? Detroit? Chicago? Baltimore? Washington DC? Can any of these urban cesspools feed themselves? Defend themselves?
All those who have ears to hear and eyes to see have already left big cities. And for those who remain? What can we say that has not already been said? I wish them many good lucks.
What began as a pandemic, morphed into an I.Q. test.
Casey,
Spot on. I’m gonna use that – with attribution
Boat Guy, I saw it on a t shirt at the gun show. It abides
Here in the Small City, skyscrapers are the exception, not the rule. My workplace is a four-story building, and my new daily (2 days a week) work workout is taking the stairs. I was never a fan of elevator blabbermouths. Big city life is my idea of Hell.
Okay. The state of the USA today is because of “manifest destiny” which through various sleights of hand and political slogans and spending programs became (after “westward ho”) the “highly mobile society”, which became let’s move to “office parks” (which if you still have your eyes closed are “plantations”); off-shoring followed, and now (easily 40 + yrs) we have automation and 10s of millions of illegals and now (25+ yrs) the 6th Century and religiously intolerant refugees being planted in rural America. …
The Emma Lazarus poem plays on the generosity of the human spirit and (perhaps without knowing) a Judaeo-Christian value relating to the goodness in all humanity. But it was and remains a utopian ideal; and past waves of immigration (late 19th / early 20th century) were followed by turmoil (violence) and long periods of assimilation (which 7-15 generations later is not complete).
It is true Lot and his wife left cities; but when she looked back she turned into a pillar of salt (no life; still connected).
All who run from the cities are fooling themselves and have bought into a political lie; ultimately it is selfish. And, if you objectively analyze the economics you find that most of the communities of expatriates are dependent on the cities / states they left and government workers (and the businesses that employ them) – What happens when those businesses cease to exist or move ? When the federal tax dollars and pension monies from the demonrat states stop ? …
And, what form of currency are you going to use when your electronic and paper money has no value ?
Should the economy / government fail you are not in a life sustaining environment; unless you are truly isolated and able to live without creature comforts (and then for how long ?). Yet, if one is in a major metropolitan area life for most while not desirable will be sustainable; if only because there will be the center of political turmoil and the sustained / renewed genesis of voluntary servitude.
Of course if all fails, it simply is going to be horrific and only those who are in a tribe that can focus on perpetuating “life itself” even to the point of their own demise will in the end succeed.
But, if you do not want to consider the above argument, how about: demonrats are segregationists – every thing they have been doing since the founding and early 1800s is about division. And, every comment above emphasizes division and separation. … Who’s winning ?
“And, what form of currency are you going to use when your electronic and paper money has no value ?”
=========
Brain and muscle will be the primary tools of production, and voices will be the means of conveyance.
In other words, collaboration for barter or exchange. Eliminating the 3rd party means of exchange (money) lessens the methods of thievery. I strive for a simpler life.
Lagman- when electronic and paper currency become worthless, it will revert back to the “replacement currencies” being potable water, food, and most importantly (and most versatile) – weaponry and ammo. Coincidentally, the same 3 things that are “drying up” in Commiefornia.
“All who run from the cities are fooling themselves and have bought into a political lie; ultimately it is selfish.”
I see no reasoning at all in that statement. You’re recommending to STAY in a place where the conditions are the worst and self-sustenance is way more difficult, and with way more people fighting over waning resources? Remain in a place where you’re surrounded by crime and danger?
In other words, stay on the deck of a sinking ship?
No thanks, I’ll swim instead.
Maybe that might make me “selfish,” but who cares?
Of course, I now live in what you call a “life sustaining environment.” And I don’t care if Democrats/Liberals/Socialists want “division and separation”- those are the people whom I’ve separated myself far away from.
They’ve been replaced by the fine people in the “tribe” I’m now part of.
Winning is determined after the game is played.
“The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue.”
― Mao Tsé-Tung
In the meantime, valid plays are to retreat and prepare…
And provide provide…
Provide, Provide by Robert Frost
The witch that came (the withered hag)
To wash the steps with pail and rag,
Was once the beauty Abishag,
The picture pride of Hollywood.
Too many fall from great and good
For you to doubt the likelihood.
Die early and avoid the fate.
Or if predestined to die late,
Make up your mind to die in state.
Make the whole stock exchange your own!
If need be occupy a throne,
Where nobody can call you crone.
Some have relied on what they knew;
Others on simply being true.
What worked for them might work for you.
No memory of having starred
Atones for later disregard,
Or keeps the end from being hard.
Better to go down dignified
With boughten friendship at your side
Than none at all. Provide, provide!
Just came inside from working on my forge house (Ain’t making it big enough to call a blacksmith shop.).
Up to now hot metal bigger than a Bowie knife or a machete has been a summer job, coal fired forge and railroad track anvil on a 15 inch steel I beam have been set up outside, not too handy at -40° with a few feet of snow so…
roofing and siding a space when I can pound and shape white hot metal when it’s as cold as -20° at least.
And provide, provide…, I’ll be right, might have to consider getting a trip hammer after I turn ninety or so though.
Better to go down sweatin’ hard
Drinking Irish with a pard
And done it all.
Provide, provide.
Andy Dufresne sed: “Get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’.”, we can see what choice Jim has chosen.
Aspiring Smith here. I have produced useful things but am still very much n the apprentice stage.
You may enjoy this video interview with Francis Whitaker, artist blacksmith extraordinaire. I had the privilege of knowing him when I was young. (Bear with the poor audio). He died with his hammer in his hand.
https://youtu.be/U_hya1ENCt4
Great sense of enthusiasm, O’Neil.
Life is for the living!
James O’Neil:
Holy cow, that sounds like fun! I’ve watched people do old school blacksmithing. It’s another of civilization’s primal art forms. That sort of labor feeds the soul.
JWM
Truly it does. Highly recommended.
Look up the TV show named “Forged in Fire” on the DEFY over the air channel.
They do an all day marathon once a week.
I am privileged to learn from and work with several “Forged in Fire” contestants including one champion.
A vintage film of Sam Yellin in his smithy shop fabricating grill work.
https://youtu.be/SZsBfVxsnmg
Iron working looks to become a newly lost art in these days of nihilism.
How quickly civilization can be cast aside by ignorati.