England is a cup of tea.
France, a wheel of ripened Brie.
Greece, a short, squat olive tree.
America is a gun.
Brazil is football on the sand.
Argentina, Maradona’s hand.
Germany, an oompah band.
America is a gun.
Holland is a wooden shoe.
Hungary a goulash stew.
Australia, a kangaroo.
America is a gun
Japan is a thermal spring.
Scotland is a highland fling.
Oh, better to be anything
than America as a gun
~ Brian Bilston
We went to the Asheville Art Museum on Wednesday. Toward the end of our perusal, Chuck pointed me to a painting by Childe Hassam. I had become a fan when there was an exhibition of his work at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh a few years ago.
His work is some of the best examples of the Impressionist style that I’ve seen.
I remember getting so mad at my parents when I was expected to go to bed at 8:00 (or 8:30. I don’t remember. It’s been a minute.) in the summer when the sun and school were still out.
A friend shared this with me in celebration, remembrance and teasing.
In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.
I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people’s feet
Still going past me in the street.
And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?
~Robert Louis Stevenson, “Bed In Summer,” from “A Child’s Garden of Verses”
I am the Audience 