Question Of The Day, Wednesday, May 30, 2018

[Jcatbird]

Margret The Lion and The Tiger! I am glad you love poetry as well. Words bring such visions to mind. Mamanyt1953 You have opened new worlds of literature for all by opening this thread. Yay! I shall be straining my eyes ‘til dawn! Can I just purraise all right here and now? Purraise!

Hear, hear!

Jcatbird , no, you aren't the only one who likes poetry; I do as well. Although my tastes tend to run to Ogden Nash and Hilaire Belloc....

(If you've never encountered Hilaire Belloc, see Project Gutenberg: Books by Belloc, Hilaire (sorted by popularity). I especially enjoy his "children's" books, which, in all fairness, I wouldn't read to a child unless the child were extremely sophisticated. The only one which isn't available on Project Gutenberg is New Cautionary Tales, because it's still in copyright.

From The Bad Child's Book of Beasts:

The Lion​

The Lion, the Lion, he dwells in the waste,
He has a big head and a very small waist;

But his shoulders are stark, and his jaws they are grim,
And a good little child will not play with him.

The Tiger​

The Tiger on the other hand,

is kittenish and mild,
He makes a pretty playfellow for any little child;
And mothers of large families (who claim to common sense)

Will find a Tiger well repay the trouble and expense.

* * * * * *​

You can see why I wouldn't read it to a child.)

Margret

 

[misty8723]

I once had a co-worker tell me that he couldn't even imagine me without a book. I've always been a voracious reader, usually multiple at the same time. Kindle Unlimited that I signed up for on a whim last year when they had a sale has been awesome. I like historical fiction, and I've been on a WWII kick lately. There is no shortage of books I can download on that subject, and I probably would not consider any of them if I had to pay for them. (Yes, I know I AM paying for them, but this way if a particular book doesn't strike my fancy I can delete it. If I had paid for that specific book, I wouldn't feel I could do that.) The other times in history I enjoy are the old west and Civil War era. I like Fantasy and SciFi, although I haven't read any in a while. I couldn't pick one all time favorite book, that would be absolutely impossible.

 

[jcat]

If I had to pick just one, it would be True Crime. About 1/2 the books I read are non-fiction, including (auto)biographies. For fiction, I prefer mysteries.

 

[raysmyheart]

I only really enjoy non-fiction. I like current affairs the most, I think.

 

[Mother Dragon]

I go for cozies. I love James Michener but there are no more of his books. I lament that the local library has very few books now, but lots of computers. I heard that some colleges libraries now have absolutely no books, just computers. How sad.

 

[denice]

For awhile now it has been biographies. I have been reading nonfiction of one type or another for awhile now. I read a book a couple of months ago called the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. It is the best one that I have read, actually listed to in awhile. She was the woman that they got the first line of sustainable cells from that has played a big role in medicine like development of the polio vaccine. She interwove biography with her family now and issues with medical ethics including a little about other cases.

It is of less importance but sustainable cells is also how they replaced animal testing for cosmetics and hair products. That pales in comparison to something like developing a polio vaccine but that is what made cruelty free yet safe products possible.

 

[aliceneko]

Such a hard question! I'm an avid reader so I read a wide range of genres; but my favourites at the moment are historical (particularly books set in WWII), non-fiction and crime/thrillers.

 

[micknsnicks2mom]

definitely historical fiction. and especially if it's spy/espionage related historical fiction.

but i enjoy (true) history that reads well -- not 'dry', equally as much!

 

[Mamanyt1953]

It is of less importance but sustainable cells is also how they replaced animal testing for cosmetics and hair products. That pales in comparison to something like developing a polio vaccine but that is what made cruelty free yet safe products possible.

Well, it certainly isn't of lesser importance to hundres of thousands (if not millions) of lab animals! Not pale in the least. Especially if you (and all of us do) live in a world where animal's lives have value.

 

[Margret]

Jcatbird , in my opinion one of the most beautiful poems ever written was commissioned by The New York Times from Archibald MacLeish, to run on their front page on July 21, 1969, the day Neil Armstrong took "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." On either July 20 or July 21, 1994, the 25th anniversary of either the landing of Apollo 11 or the first moon walk, I heard an interview with MacLeish on All Things Considered on NPR, where he read his poem, and I fell in love with it. Unfortunately, I only got half of the interview on tape and had to do some research to find the entire poem.

Next July will be the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 and I'm hoping that NPR will dig that interview out from their archives at the Library of Congress and re-run it (archives that old aren't available online, unfortunately).

Here's the poem:

Voyage to the Moon
by Archibald MacLeish​

Presence among us,
wanderer in our skies,
dazzle of silver in our leaves and on our
waters silver,

O

silver evasion in our farthest thought–
'the visiting moon' ... 'the glimpses of the moon' …

and we have touched you!

From the first of time,
before the first of time, before the
first men tasted time, we thought of you.
You were a wonder to us, unattainable,
a longing past the reach of longing,
a light beyond our light, our lives–perhaps
a meaning to us...

Now

our hands have touched you in your depth of night.

Three days and three nights we journeyed,
steered by farthest stars, climbed outward,
crossed the invisible tide-rip where the floating dust
falls one way or the other in the void between,
followed that other down, encountered
cold, faced death–unfathomable emptiness...

Then, the fourth day evening, we descended,
made fast, set foot at dawn upon your beaches,
sifted between our fingers your cold sand.

We stand here in the dusk, the cold, the silence...

and here, as at the first of time, we lift our heads.
Over us, more beautiful than the moon, a
moon, a wonder to us, unattainable,
a longing past the reach of longing,
a light beyond our light, our lives–perhaps
a meaning to us...

O, a meaning!

over us on these silent beaches the bright earth,

presence among us.

*******************

Margret

 

[Kitty Mommy]

I have a wide range of genres that I like to read. I like medical thrillers, historical fiction, historical non-fiction particularly the Tudor dynasty, legal thrillers, ghost stories, and Amish fiction.

 

[Jcatbird]

Margret I agree. That is one of the greats! I remember ( telling age here) when it was quoted in reference to the moon walk. I think most people of my age associate the two in our minds now. I remember watching the walk on television. All the children were gathered in the school auditorium to watch and listen. You could have heard a pin drop as we were mesmerized by the sight. The phrase, “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”, is forever etched in many minds. I wish that the entire poem was read more often. So many only know that single line that has been quoted so many times. I wonder how many people have ever had the chance to hear all the rest. Thank you for posting it here. It is a grand thing to share. It is awesome that you tracked it down. I think you earned a gold star in reading!

 

[Margret]

Jcatbird , I had a summer job, working in food service at the hospital where my mother ran the Physical and Occupational Therapy departments, and I was scheduled to work that day. It really bothered me that I wouldn't be able to watch the first moon walk in real time. That evening I was taking the meal cart up to the wards, delivering patient meals, and every patient had the television on, all watching the same thing (in all fairness it was the only thing on ) and I was catching bits and pieces of the commentary leading up to the actual moon walk with every meal I delivered. Then, a little way down the hall I saw an elderly patient standing in the door of her room, and she was calling out "Help me. Will somebody please help me?" so I went up to her to ask what the problem was. She said "It's supper time. I can hear the meal cart and smell the food, but I don't have any." (I would have gotten to her room in about two minutes, of course.)

I said, "Ah. Fortunately, you've asked the right person; I'm the one pushing the meal cart. I'll just get your tray for you, okay?" So I brought her tray, she got back in bed, and just then the television commentary made it obvious that the walk was finally about to happen. So I stood there by her bed and we watched Neil Armstrong step onto the moon together. Then I backtracked to the rooms I'd just skipped over and finished delivering meals.

And with Alan Bean's death a week ago we are now down to 4 living people who have walked on the moon. We're near the end of an era.

Margret

 

[Jcatbird]

Jcatbird , I had a summer job, working in food service at the hospital where my mother ran the Physical and Occupational Therapy departments, and I was scheduled to work that day. It really bothered me that I wouldn't be able to watch the first moon walk in real time. That evening I was taking the meal cart up to the wards, delivering patient meals, and every patient had the television on, all watching the same thing (in all fairness it was the only thing on ) and I was catching bits and pieces of the commentary leading up to the actual moon walk with every meal I delivered. Then, a little way down the hall I saw an elderly patient standing in the door of her room, and she was calling out "Help me. Will somebody please help me?" so I went up to her to ask what the problem was. She said "It's supper time. I can hear the meal cart and smell the food, but I don't have any." (I would have gotten to her room in about two minutes, of course.)

I said, "Ah. Fortunately, you've asked the right person; I'm the one pushing the meal cart. I'll just get your tray for you, okay?" So I brought her tray, she got back in bed, and just then the television commentary made it obvious that the walk was finally about to happen. So I stood there by her bed and we watched Neil Armstrong step onto the moon together. Then I backtracked to the rooms I'd just skipped over and finished delivering meals.

And with Alan Bean's death a week ago we are now down to 4 living people who have walked on the moon. We're near the end of an era.

Margret

True it is the closing of a different time but it also started many new things. I was reading some old poetry tonight. It struck me that some things stay the same even through the changes of an era. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is one of my favorite poets. Maybe you would like his poem, “ The Builders” or “Today”, by Angela Morgan. I am an optimist. So I will quote an unknown poet from a poem called, “The Optimist”. “ The optimist fell ten stories. At each window bar. He shouted to his friends: “All right so far.”

I hope that each era blends and folds well into the batter of the next!

 

[Margret]

I grew up watching the Gemini, and then the Apollo programs. I remember my mother waking me and my brothers up before sunrise so we could go into my parents' bedroom and snuggle in between them in bed, to watch Alan Shepard take off in the Freedom 7, and doing the same to watch John Glenn's first orbital flight in 1962. I remember sitting on the living room carpet on Christmas Eve 1968, with the only lights the twinkling of the Christmas tree and the television, as we watched the Christmas Eve broadcast from Apollo 8. One of my very first memories is my father waking me up very late one night (i.e. it was dark out - I was very young) and telling me to put on my snow suit, very quietly because we didn't want to awaken my mother (who had both a newborn and a two-year old to care for and needed all the sleep she could get). Then he took me into the back yard and showed me the stars. He showed me the Milky Way (I thought it just looked like a bunch of stars and not at all like spilled milk), and Orion, and showed me how to find the North Star. And then he pointed out a star that was actually moving, visibly! It was Sputnik 1; he wanted me to be able to tell my grandchildren that I had seen the very first artificial satellite with my own eyes.

For me the space program has always awakened wonder, and awe, the very same emotions I get when reading "Voyage to the Moon," and it bothers me that after all that effort to get to the moon we've given up that ability. And as I see my childhood heroes die, I find myself feeling my age. It disturbs me that most of my friends have never seen a man walk on the moon in real time. I'm still coming to terms with my own mortality - ignore my angst; I'll get over it, eventually.

Margret

 

[Margret]

So, just to change the tone, here's another by Hilaire Belloc, from A Moral Alphabet:
G
stands for Gnu, whose weapons of Defence
Are long, sharp, curling Horns, and Common-sense.
To these he adds a Name so short and strong,

That even Hardy Boers pronounce it wrong.
How often on a bright Autumnal day
The Pious people of Pretoria say,
"Come, let us hunt the——" Then no more is heard
But Sounds of Strong Men struggling with a word.
Meanwhile, the distant Gnu with grateful eyes
Observes his opportunity, and flies.


Moral.
Child, if you have a rummy kind of name,
Remember to be thankful for the same.
*******************************

Margret

 

[Mamanyt1953]

Jcatbird , in my opinion one of the most beautiful poems ever written was commissioned by The New York Times from Archibald MacLeish, to run on their front page on July 21, 1969, the day Neil Armstrong took "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." On either July 20 or July 21, 1994, the 25th anniversary of either the landing of Apollo 11 or the first moon walk, I heard an interview with MacLeish on All Things Considered on NPR, where he read his poem, and I fell in love with it. Unfortunately, I only got half of the interview on tape and had to do some research to find the entire poem.

Next July will be the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 and I'm hoping that NPR will dig that interview out from their archives at the Library of Congress and re-run it (archives that old aren't available online, unfortunately).

Here's the poem:

Voyage to the Moon
by Archibald MacLeish​

Presence among us,
wanderer in our skies,
dazzle of silver in our leaves and on our
waters silver,

O

silver evasion in our farthest thought–
'the visiting moon' ... 'the glimpses of the moon' …

and we have touched you!

From the first of time,
before the first of time, before the
first men tasted time, we thought of you.
You were a wonder to us, unattainable,
a longing past the reach of longing,
a light beyond our light, our lives–perhaps
a meaning to us...

Now

our hands have touched you in your depth of night.

Three days and three nights we journeyed,
steered by farthest stars, climbed outward,
crossed the invisible tide-rip where the floating dust
falls one way or the other in the void between,
followed that other down, encountered
cold, faced death–unfathomable emptiness...

Then, the fourth day evening, we descended,
made fast, set foot at dawn upon your beaches,
sifted between our fingers your cold sand.

We stand here in the dusk, the cold, the silence...

and here, as at the first of time, we lift our heads.
Over us, more beautiful than the moon, a
moon, a wonder to us, unattainable,
a longing past the reach of longing,
a light beyond our light, our lives–perhaps
a meaning to us...

O, a meaning!

over us on these silent beaches the bright earth,

presence among us.

*******************

Margret

HOLY GOOD GRIEF, did that give me chills!

 

[Winchester]

I also like Clive Cussler books. I'm not even sure what category they're in, I just steal my dad's paperbacks. But they're fun .

@Willowy I am a big Cussler fan. I started out years and years ago with the Dirk Pitt series and have gone on to The Oregon Files, NUMA Files, and I really love the Issac Bell series. I have The Gray Ghost on hold at our library; it's the new Fargo book. The man is certainly a prolific writer.