Thought for Today ~

"If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity."
~ John F. Kennedy

"Civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock."
~ Sigmund Freud

"Each time someone stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope."
~Robert F. Kennedy

Let's hope . . .

In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.
Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.

Join us in The Neat L'l Bookshop on Thursday, January 15 at 1:00 p.m.  Laurie Miller, author of "The Avro Arrow" will read and present the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas.  Everyone welcome ~ coffee pot's always on. . .

"je suis Charlie"

 



Cayuga's New Fire Station

Haldimand County Fire Department Station 4

THE OUTING:  A STORY

"If you can call it a story.  There's no real beginning or
end and there's very little in the middle.  It is all about
a day's outing, by charabanc, to Porthcawl, which,
of course, the charabanc never reached, and it happened
when I was so high and much nicer."

Dylan Thomas was a story teller . . .

 

~ A STORY BY DYLAN THOMAS with illustrations by Meg Stevens J. M. DENT & SONS LTD. 1954, 1971.

 

 

"The bards of ancient Wales were either master poets patronized at the Welsh courts or minstrels wandering from village to inn, telling their tales for bread and shelter.  The court bards had to undergo a rigorous training in metre and metaphor and Christian allegory;  a restricted official vocabulary, carefully vetted for heresy or indulgence, limited the abundance of the Welsh language. . .Bards competed fiercely for the Chairs of Poetry at the various courts and for the patronage of the Welsh kings; but they were more courtiers than poets, more interested in a safe position than in the dangerous search after poetic truth.  At one period, the court bards accepted a metrical code of writing, which restricted them in practice to writing eulogies of the princes and elegies for their deaths.  The riches of the full Welsh language and its treasure of myths and romances were abandoned to the minstrels or travelling bards."

Last year, 2014, Wales celebrated one of their most famous bards, Dylan Thomas.  His writing and travels, the great Welsh tradition of reading and writing poetry will be the topic in the NEAT LITTLE BOOKSHOP on Third Thursday, January 15 at 1:00 p.m. We are pleased to have Laurie Miller, author of Avro Arrow, who will read and discuss Dylan Thomas.

 

Join us on Thursday, January 15 AT 1:00 p.m.

~ DYLAN THOMAS POET OF HIS PEOPLE Andrew Sinclair, Michael Joseph Ltd, 1975.

Smile For Today ~

     "Jake has carefully categorized our guests.  Ordinary people, friends he sees frequently, get the bear when they show up at the door, the ragged, chewed-up teddy bear.
     New people? They get the pink Easter Bunny, right after he shakes the stuffing out of it and slams it on the floor a few times.
     But special people? People who might be bearing dog treats?  They get the "Bear in the Bag."  This is a mint-condition, black-and-white Panda bear Jake got for Christmas.  Since he's mangled most of his other toys, I forbid him to take this one out of its bright red gift bag.  The ribbon still holds the paper handles together at the top, so he can't actually get his teeth on the bear, just the bag.  So the "Bear In the Bag" has become the highest honor bestowed on guests, once.  No treat, and you can count on getting that stupid bunny the next time."

~The Dog Rules (Damn Near Everything!)  William J. Thomas

[When no one else can make you laugh, try reading William Thomas.  Available in The Neat L'l Bookshop. ~ lbw]

www.williamthomas.ca