Monthly Archives: July 2015

Thyme takes time

Posted on July 30, 2015 by jyourist

We have an herb garden and periodically through the summer and fall I will pick herbs and dry them, by hanging them on the wall that leads to our basement. It’s cool there and mostly dark. Once the herbs are … Continue reading →

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“Katachi” by Shugo Tokumaru

Posted on July 29, 2015 by jyourist

In our latest communication with IB in Japan, he said that he has recently found the music of Shugo Tokumaru to be phenomenal. This musician composes, writes the lyrics, mixes, and performs his music, controlling every aspect of it. He … Continue reading →

Posted in aesthetics, animation, Japan, music, music video | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

“Jubilate” by Galway Kinnell

Posted on July 28, 2015 by jyourist

1 So from poet to poet we proceeded in our celebration of Christopher Smart’s long-undiscovered poem Jubilate Agno, composed by this profligate, drunken, devout, mad polymath between 1757 and 1763 while incarcerated for a year in St. Luke’s Hospital for the Insane and then for four or … Continue reading →

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T’ai Chi on a bed of roses

Posted on July 27, 2015 by jyourist

There were rose petals all around. My guess— the floral remains of a weekend wedding or at the very least, of a weekend photo shoot for a wedding. Someone said they saw a ribbon adorned with small pearls laying about … Continue reading →

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“Dismembered Big Boy: Yes, Officer, That’s His Pompadour, All Right”

Posted on July 26, 2015 by jyourist

When I was a teenager in Toledo Ohio, my friends and I would always go to Frischs’ Big Boy after or before events. Sometimes going to Big Boy was the event itself. We would usually order cokes and french fries … Continue reading →

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More than worth the effort

Posted on July 25, 2015 by jyourist

Yesterday I took my mother to Party City. She loves to go there to get her cards for birthdays and anniversaries because the cards are 50% off. There are three aisles of cards. Three. And gezillions of cards in each … Continue reading →

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Am I going to die?

Posted on July 24, 2015 by jyourist

My mother and I were sitting in a small outside garden of her assisted living facility before dinner yesterday. The weather was beautiful. Not too hot. Not too cool. A small breeze. The sounds of a bubbling faux stream behind … Continue reading →

Posted in aging, compassion, death | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

“Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake.”

Posted on July 21, 2015 by jyourist

We just happened to “bump into” Hoichi Kurisu yesterday at Anderson Gardens. He is a world-renowned landscape designer, having designed Anderson Japanese Gardens and the Portland Japanese Gardens (two of our favorites), as well as many other gardens and meditative … Continue reading →

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Oh Kindle, Oh Nook, What we miss with the digital book

Posted on July 19, 2015 by jyourist

This 16th century book is an amazing example of gifted and creative craftsmanship. It has taken the “dos a dos” (“back to back”) technique of bookbinding to a new level by binding 6 books together, the collection itself able to … Continue reading →

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Nelson Mandella 1918-2013

Posted on July 18, 2015 by jyourist

On this day, Nelson Mandela, the anti-apartheid revolutionary, would have been 97. A year and a half ago, when he died, Bob Herbert (former New York Times columnist) wrote a remarkable piece about how history can swallow the work of … Continue reading →

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