“Depression is the inability to construct a future.”
Rollo May, Love and Will
Archives for June 2020
Almanac: Edward Abbey on melancholia
“As a confirmed melancholic, I can testify that the best and maybe only antidote for melancholia is action. However, like most melancholics, I suffer also from sloth.”
Edward Abbey, A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto)
Snapshot: Johnny Cash sings “Big River”
Johnny Cash performs his “Big River” on an episode of Pet Milk Grand Ole Opry originally telecast on February 12, 1962:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)
Almanac: Edward Abbey on wit
“The distrust of wit is the beginning of tyranny.”
Edward Abbey, A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto)
Lookback: on writing as work (and other matters)
From 2005:
Read the whole thing here.Very few people who don’t write for a living understand that writing is work, much less that a writer who is sitting in a chair, reading a book or staring absently into the distance, may be as “busy” as one who is clicking away at his computer….
Almanac: Patrick O’Brian on pleasure
“Any innocent pleasure is a real good; there are not so many of them.”
Patrick O’Brian, Post Captain
Just because: Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor dance on TV in 1959
Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor dance a medley of songs from their films. This clip is an excerpt from Pontiac Star Parade, a TV special that was originally telecast by NBC on November 21, 1959:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)
Almanac: Dorothy Sayers on tact
“Few things are more irritating than to discover, after you have been at great pains to spare a person some painful intelligence, that he has known it all along and is not nearly so mch affected by it as he properly should be.”
Dorothy Sayers, Clouds of Witness (courtesy of Levi Stahl)