I am loving my break from work. And New Year's Eve is tomorrow. So happy. 2011 is going to be shiny.

It's that time of year again . . .

It never ceases to amaze me.

From The New York Sun., 1897

We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:

"Dear Editor--I am eight years old.
"Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
"Papa says, 'If you see it in The Sun, it's so.'
"Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia O'Hanlon
115 W. 95th Street

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the scepticism of a sceptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no child-like faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

Sneak Peek!

Get a sneak peek at a new painting I started on my sick day (didn't finish it because I figured that breathing paint and paint thinner will not help bronchitis like symptoms) here at my art blog.

It is going to be called 'Anna, the Apple Farmer's Wife.' I can't wait to write her story.

Arnika

Arnica might take out the throws that I threw in my head
Bruno, your wife shakes her bedclothes as she makes up the bed

I’m tired of life; I’m tired of waiting for someone
I’m tired of prices; I’m tired of waiting for something

I have a right to know what’s in store; to know what should be said
Could I have it all, could I have you for a night in the warmth of your bed?

I’m tired of life; I’m tired of waiting for someone
I’m tired of prices; I’m tired of waiting for something
I’m tired of life; I’m tired of life.

Oh be patient with me; for the night weighs on my chest with a terrible storm
Though we may disagree on how things should be done on how crisis is born
Don’t consider it done wait until Leviathan lovingly creeps in your sill
For he waits in the dark, brooding magically; mustering paperback feelings

No I’m not afraid of death or strife or injury, accidents, they are my friends…

Sufjan Stevens

More of these days:

The Grey and the Water


Grey, grey, silver, grey.
Around glimmer ghosts of the sun.
It’s only found in raindrops these days,
These grey-silver days.
But I do not hate the grey.
I love its tempestuous flips
From woolen to silk,
Silk to woolen to winking charcoal.
Everywhere is where the water is:
My shoes, my hair, my eyes.
These watery, raining days.
But I do not hate the water.
I love its shape-shifting ways
From fog to rain,
Rain to fog to sugary snow.


The grey and the water have baskets.
They carry awareness to my door.
When they knock on my red door,
I open it and they come rushing, dancing in.
They borrow my breath (only for a moment)
And return it with more reason to breathe.
They are frames for colors who long to be made
Eternal in the minds and eyes of the dreaming.
They are the lovers of leaves and pavement,
Bringing the jewels of the sky to the Earth.
Splashing, saturating, intensifying,
Washing, nourishing, covering.
I will never hate the grey and the water
But rather sing to them with my mind
And love them with my eyes.


(These are the days we are having and I am in love with them, so this is a song of my mind to them.)

Beautiful.

http://charleskeiger.blogspot.com/

I like his work.

Lovely: http://tecpetajaphoto.com/blog/

You can't lose as a photographer when you are getting the chance to shoot weddings in France and Italy and with people like Matt Kearney and Nathan Followill. The pictures are just lovely.

"As a matter of fact,observant Jews did not paint at all--in the way that I am painting. So strong words are being written and spoken about me, myths are being generated: I am a traitor, an apostate, a self-hater, an inflicter of shame upon my family, my friends, my people; also, I am a mocker of ideas sacred to Christians, a blasphemous manipulator of modes and forms revered by Gentiles for two thousand years.

Well, I am none of these things. And yet, in all honesty, I confess that my accusers are not altogether wrong: I am indeed, in some way, all of these things.

The fact is that gossip, rumors,myth-making, and news stories are not appropriate vehicles for the communication of nuances of truth, those subtle tonalities that are often the truly crucial elements in a causal chain."

Chaim Potok, My Name is Asher Lev