"Being solitary is being alone well; being alone luxuriously immersed in doings of your own choice, aware of the fullness of your won presence rather than of the absence of others, because solitude is an achievement."

~ Alice Koller, author of The Stations of Solitude and An Unknown Woman.

"When something is intolerable is in my life, I head for the water.  It leavens me in some way.  Some middle-most part of me is soothed and silenced by it." ~ Alice Koller

 

 

 

Information Processing

Neologism:  "The key phrase, 'information processing,' was coined by Marshall McLuhan, who was asked by IBM to explain to them, in succinct language, what computers are all about,"  according to Peter Bishop in Fifth Generation Computers (1986).

"The microchip will take its rightful place among history's four greatest inventions--the others being fire, the wheel, and hotel room service." ~ Peter C. Newman, Canadian Journalist, "The Dawn of a New Millennium." Maclean's, 30 Dec. 1996.

"In terms of, say, a computer technology we are headed for cottage economics, where the most important industrial activities can be carried on in any individual little shack anywhere on the globe."  Marshall McLuhan, communications pioneer, observation made in 1970. The Essential McLuhan (1995) edited by E. McLuhan & F. Zingrone.


"Thought:  one day the word 'gigabits' is going to seem as small as the word 'dozen.' ~ Observation of the narrator of Douglas Coupland's novel Microserfs (1995)."

[Source:  John Robert Colombo's FAMOUS LASTING WORDS/ Great Canadian Quotations, Douglas & McIntyre Ltd., 2000.

Who said that?

"Birds of a feather will gather together."

"Penny wise, pound foolish."

"Be not solitary, be not idle."

"No rule is so general, which admits not some exception."

~
~Robert Burton (1577 - 1640)  English scholar, best known for his The Anatomy of Melancholy.

[Photo: from files Neat Little Bookshop 11B Cayuga Street.]

The Last Stand...

Looking East

 

 

[Please click on photo for larger image. lbw] 

The Book Lady

We lost a dear friend, Dorothy Brown, The Book Lady.  Dorothy was well-known in the CircleM/Mizeners Flea Market, Hwy. 5 in Flamboro.  She came to Canada in 1946 as a war bride. She was  in her 91st year.

Dorothy and her husband, Roy, opened a bookshop and collectibles thirty years ago.  We will miss you, Dorothy.

   

Topsy-Turvy World

If the butterfly courted the bee,
     And the owl the porcupine;
If churches were built in the sea,
     And three times one was nine;
If the pony rode his master,
     If the buttercups ate the cows,
If the cat had the dire disaster,
     To be worried, sir, by the mouse;
If mamma, sir, sold the baby
     To a gipsy for half-a-crown;
If a gentleman, sir, was a lady,
     The world would be Upside-Down!
If any of all these wonders
     Should ever come about
I should not consider them blunders,
     For I should be Inside-Out!

~ William Brighty Rands (1823 - 1882) British writer, known for his Victorian era nursery rhymes.
[Photo files:  Upper Canada Village, Kingston]