BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

Some friends have lost their childhoods, like a bottle in the sea. Mine is with me always.

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

Where do I go when I need to think?

To the old oak tree half way into the woods, on the trail that's hard to find. I sit under it, in the almost dark, its branches are huge and weighted down with leaves, only a little sunlight finds its way down there, below the spreading branches, and it is cool, and the air filed with a mossy, earthy smell.

0

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

Without you I would have been somebody else.

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

We tend to think that our real lives begin tomorrow. We disregard today. We save ourselves up for something.

This is only a way of letting life pass us by.

mek

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

Love has a bitter taste. Oscar Wilde, Salome

Some people rock the boat, others row the boat. Unknown

The public business must be carried on by someone; if wise men decline it then others will take it. John Adams

No distinction can be made between the erotic and the esthetic. Picasso

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

Pictures must not be too expressive. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Three things needed for success in painting: To see beauty when young and accustom ones self to it, to work hard, and to obtain good advice. Gialorenzo Bernini

Have no fear of perfection. You'll never reach it. Salvatore Dali

The rule in the art world is that you cater to the masses or you kowtow to the elite. You can;t do both. Ben Hecht
.

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

Life is not a vending machine where one puts in virtue and takes out happiness. auth. unknown

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. Picasso

I go to work as other men rush to see their mistresses. Eugene Delacroix

Who am I beyond the skin I'm in? Kara Walker

Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal instead of the victim. Bertrand Russell.

My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, and soft music. Vladimir Nabokov

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

You may already know these things, but you may not have thought about them
recently.

I knew Spencer's mother; Gross' mother and father, I have a fading memory of his
grandfather ; Randelman's mother and father; and even the couple , Sally &
Irwin, who worked for his parents; Malkin's mother, father and sister, I did not
ever meet Danny's parents; I knew Manny and Grace Schultz better than most;-even
Patti knew them; I knew both of Schupf's parents, although I never met his
sisters; I never met Aaronson's parents. 

I think that one of the reasons that we have stuck together is that we are a
little smarter than most--though, I understand that doesn't apply as much to SS,
Bob, and Gross because you are in professions to which intelligent people
occasionally gravitate,.

I knew each of Gross' wives, I met Bob's first wife, I don't remember Nancy
Cypress but I am sure that I met her; of course I know Mary, I know Kathy, but
don't remember either of SS's other wives but I do recall meeting one their husbands, a librarian with a cane named Ben Ch--and I liked him very much. Who was
the redhead?

You have all met Maria in both of her incarnations,  I think you have all met my
sons;  I have met all of Gross' children, and grandchildren--that's four 
generations!-- but none of Bob's; nor his grandchildren; I might have met or
seen Craig and Nicole, Hal's son & daughter, but only at a funeral; I met Max
once but I am not really clear on him. Anthony is a total mystery to me, as he
is a pataphysicist.

I think that if each of us made a graph or chart showing these amazing
connections we could

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

A, for unknown, unexpressed reasons, has an irrational and violent disdain for B. When I discovered that B lived in the same building and on the very floor that A lived, he, A, insisted that we not invite him (B) to any of our dinners, nor even for the cocktails, shrimp and vegetable pate we often shared at the A apartment, separated only by a thin partition from poor, lonely B's room. Not even a glass of water!

In addition, B knows a piece of goods when he sees it and wears sport jackets in the mode of the ones George Saunders wore when he played Arthur in Rebecca.

I do not begrudge A his personal likes or dislikes, and as you know B occupies the highest shelf in my mental storeroom of friendship, regard and respect. A's hostmanship is well-known, and appreciated by all who have come into his wide and spreading umbra. But, his attitude towards B bewilders me.

I inform you of these facts only because I know of your deep sense of discretion.

B, too, asked for the recipe.

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

Frenzies, possessions, mania, melancholy, nerves, tics, passionate loves and hates, melancholy, nerves, delusions, aberrant acts, dramatic tics, visual and auditory hallucinations, fears, phobias, and fantasies, disturbances of sleep, disassociations, communion with spirits and imaginary friends, addictions, self-harm, self-starvation an depression.

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

“Common sense is seeing things as they are; and doing things as they ought to be.”
Harriet Beecher Stowe

The American people have a capacity for great things. We must once again set ourselves on a course to achieve them—based on those values that have sustained America throughout the centuries:

• Justice. In a just America, money should not determine the limits of any American’s future, or deny any American the medical advancements that can save and sustain life. Health insurance, prescription drugs and higher education can be accessible and affordable for everyone.
  
• Fairness. Our tax burden today falls most heavily on hard work, while wealth is taxed less. We subsidize corporations that are polluting our environment or sending jobs overseas. But we can restore fairness to our tax code—rewarding hard work, ensuring that wealth pays its fair share, and penalizing waste.
  
  Fairness also demands that we address the disparity between the incomes of women and the incomes of men. Closing the wage gap will benefit all Americans.
  
• Progress. Today, technologies exist that can form the foundation of our economy for the next century. We should invest aggressively in them, just as when our nation invested in railroads, rural electrification, and in public highways.
  
  We can create a new energy economy, relying on sources that will never run out, including solar power, wind power, ethanol and biomass. Doing so will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and create new jobs for decades to come.
  
• Moral Leadership in the World. Harry S. Truman said, “The only expansion we are interested in is the expansion of human freedom and the wider enjoyment of the good things of the earth in all countries. The only prize we covet is the respect and good will of our fellow members of the family of nations. The only realm in which we aspire to eminence exists in the minds of men, where authority is exercised through the qualities of sincerity, compassion and right conduct.” That is the American role in the world that we can restore.
  
• Self-Government. We can reform our republic—restoring a democracy in which every person has a voice and our government works for the benefit of all the people.
  
• Community. We have an obligation to one another as Americans and as human beings. America will be stronger when we recognize that we are dependent on each other, responsible for each other, and connected to each other.

Howard Dean 2003

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

Goethe wrote:

"Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least."

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

We all face ethical choices and pressures daily: give the money back to the cashier who gave too much change or keep it? Cheat on an exam or take it honestly? Fudge an expense report or tax return or file it truthfully? Keep our word or break a promise? "Every time you make a choice," wrote C.S. Lewis, "you are turning the central part of you, the part that chooses, into something a little different than it was before."

The foundation of our character is laid brick by brick, decision by decision, in how we choose to live our lives.

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

The longer I live the more I realize the impact of attitude on life...Attitude, to me, is more important, than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people say or think or do. I it is more important than appearance, gifted-ness or skill. It will make or break a person, a marriage, a company, a church, or a home. We cannot change our past...we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way.We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude...I am now convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.

Charles Swindoll

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

All human sin seems so much worse in its consequences than in its intentions.

Reinhold Niebuhr

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com


From a poet named Harold Norse: a few lines out of a longer poem:

The Photograph.

"...Herein the fantoccini stare, the waxen childlooks out forever
at the man who looks back
knowing he never will outlast the child..." and

"This little square of time, this rectanglewhose right angles measure not space but time..."

and here is part of another, very appropriate today considering our governors gone wild:

"Let the dogs hump in the streets
I'd do the same if they'd let me
those guardians of public morals
who fear the horrors of pleasure
more than the horrors of war."

He wrote that in 1971.

Oh, yes, "Fantoccini" , mechanically worked puppets, a marionette show. (Oxford Shorter)

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com


From a poet named Harold Norse: a few lines out of a longer poem:

The Photograph.

"...Herein the fantoccini stare, the waxen childlooks out forever at the man who looks backknowing he never will outlast the child..." and

"This little square of time, this rectanglewhose right angles measure not space but time..."

and here is part of another, very appropriate today considering our governors gone wild:

"Let the dogs hump in the streets
I'd do the same if they'd let me
those guardians of public morals
who fear the horrors of pleasure
more than the horrors of war."

He wrote that in 1971.

Oh, yes, "Fantoccini" let's look it up: mechanically worked puppets, a marionette show. (Oxford Shorter)

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

Never Underestimate the Tyranny of Sex!

Client10

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

I believe in apology and almost always accept one when it is offered.

In my book, anything from slights, intentional or not, even theft and battery or infidelity is subject to apology and forgiveness.

Mankind is only human and we would be less so if we could not forgive others for being ordinary members of the human race.

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

Harlem? When?

In the fifties it was exciting, there were still plenty of jazz places--I remember Smalls Paradise, Jimmies, Diamonds, and I forgot the names of a dozen more. I was a white teen-ager lost in the music and found it very safe and very friendly. One of the bartenders at Smalls recognized me and I became a fixture...the only problem was my Mother & Dad who were jealous and wanted to go with me. I took them once--but they cramped my style. But music? Nothing like it since. There's nothing like live jazz in a small club or bar. Nothing! I heard Nat King Cole sit with a trio in a dingy bar on 118th st, I saw Louis Armstrong several times also sitting in (and he could play very mellow when he wanted to, Dinah Washington made even a teen-ager cry and I learned more about life from listening to her than I did in the next ten years. I saw Errol Garner at an outdoor concert one afternoon, Nina Simone visited a few places but she didn't ever sit in while I was there--she is one of my favorite singers anyway--The Hawk -Coleman Hawkins was always somewhere--wow, what days...

Besides jazz there was gospel--and once in a while a friend and I would put on our suits and go to church just to hear the music. Bring back those days.

But after the riots Harlem became a little touchy. I had to stay on 125th St and there was only the Apollo and I really never felt comfortable there- plus the seats were very tight.

Now, it's boring, gentrifying faster than you can say Jackie Robinson.