Cambridge Study Center

φιλία ΙΧΘΥΣ

As a Nation, we might want to consider re-naming today "Benjamin Harrison Day"
-- Benjamin Harrison (1833-1901)
-- 23rd U.S. President (1889-1893)

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2012/02/most-obscure-president-benjamin-harrison.html

Let’s Celebrate America’s Most Forgotten President You know, that dude. 

Happy Valentine's Day from Cambridge!

[re-posting this from 3 years ago]

The story of St. Valentine comes to us in various forms, none of which can be substantiated historically. The favorite elements are that St. Valentine was a Roman Christian priest living during the reign of Claudius II (late 3rd century AD). He was charged with either illegally marrying Christian couples or refusing to renounce his faith in Christ to worship the Roman pantheon (or both). Under house arrest he miraculously restored the vision of his jailer's blind daughter which led to the conversion and/or baptism of the jailer's entire household. Shortly before St. Valentine was led to his brutal torture and martyr's death (c. 269), he composed a letter to his jailer's daughter signed, "Your Valentine."

Fun Challenge: Let's see if we can compile a list of famous people whose first two names begin with the same letter.
Rules: No Google searches - memory banks only, please
No need to suggest all 26, but maybe with everyone's help we can build a complete list

"Good Fences Make Good Neighbors"

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbours? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbours."

"Mending Wall" (1914)
-- Robert Frost

Lots of great Christmas songs out there
Not so many New Years songs
Here's a great New Years song
Three Degrees - "Year of Decision" (1973)
https://youtu.be/1tFYe87zdAM

Three Degrees Year Of Decision The Three Degrees was one of the greatest girl groups of the 70s. This is a live performance of Year Of Decision (culled from their self titled debut album o...

Veteran's Day Post:
The legendary Stan Lee, dead today at age 95 explains how he helped the United States win WWII
-- Stan Lee, American Comic Book Writer and Executive (1922 - 2018)

https://youtu.be/RMV-J3fmQ_8

Stan Lee talks about his time in the Army during Comikaze 2014 Stan single-handedly won the war. Talks about his time during WWII at the 2014 Comikaze. This is a classic Stan Lee interview. Love him!

Here's an interesting sonnet called
"The New Colossus"

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
MOTHER OF EXILES. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

-- Emma Lazarus (1849-87)

To all our French friends and Francophiles everywhere ...
https://youtu.be/HM-E2H1ChJM

Casablanca La Marseillaise The best scene in the film.

When the witch wanted to come in, she stood down below and called out:
"Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down your hair for me."
Rapunzel had beautiful long gorgeous hair, as fine as spun gold. When she heard the witch's voice, she undid her braids and fastened them to the window latch. They fell to the ground twenty ells down, and the witch climbed up on them.
-- Wilhelm Grimm, German philologist and Folk Tale Redactor
( born today in 1786 )

Amazing speech by Jim Carrey at the opening of an Art Gallery/Homeless Shelter in Los Angeles:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzyaQ0H5D74
[ courtesy of Monica Maravilla ]

Thought for the Day: Jim Carrey - 09/09/17: This Room is Filled With God See daily inspirational videos from Homeboy Industries on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HomeboyIndustries Get more Homeboy Industries: https://homeboyin...

Haven't posted a video in some time, but this is a "must-see" - Jim Carrey speaking at an L.A. shelter/half-way house for former gang members and former incarcerated folks. Very biblical and achingly beautiful!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzyaQ0H5D74&sns=em

Thought for the Day: Jim Carrey - 09/09/17: This Room is Filled With God See daily inspirational videos from Homeboy Industries on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HomeboyIndustries Get more Homeboy Industries: http://homeboyind...

Phone support representative:
"Sir, have you tried shutting your life down and restarting it?"

"If you keep saying things are going to be bad you have a good chance of being a prophet."
-- Isaac Bashevis Singer, Polish writer ( born today in 1904 )

"In most cases men willingly believe what they wish."
"Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt."
-- Julius Caesar ( born today in 100 BC )

"We possess the [Western Literary] Canon because we are mortal and also rather belated. There is only so much time, and time must have a stop, while there is more to read than there ever was before. From the Yahwist and Homer to Freud, Kafka, and Beckett is a journey of nearly three millennia. Since that voyage goes past harbors as infinite as Dante, Chaucer, Montaigne, Shakespeare, and Tolstoy, all of whom amply compensate a lifetime's rereadings, we are in the pragmatic dilemma of excluding something else each time we read or reread extensively."
-- Harold Bloom, American literary critic ( born today in 1930 )

“Life’s meaning has always eluded me and I guess it always will. But I love it just the same.[...] If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day."
-- E. B. White, American writer ("Charlotte's Web," "Stuart Little" and "The Elements of Style") ( born today in 1899 )
-- illustration by Garth Williams

The soul doth view its awful self alone,
Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes.
-- Paul Laurence Dunbar, American poet
( born today in 1872 )

“Sensitive people faced with the prospect of a camera portrait put on a face they think is one they would like to show the world. Very often what lies behind the facade is rare and more wonderful than the subject knows or dares to believe.”
-- Irving Penn, American portrait photographer ( born today in 1917 )
-- portrait of Miles Davis, American Jazz trumpeter and band leader

"The time has come," the Walrus said, "to speak of other things"
Like a fallen star who works in a bar where Yesterday is king
The fans will stay for an hour or so, they still remember his fame
"But the time has come," the Walrus said, "to call your fans by name."
-- Harry Nissson, American singer/songwriter
( born today in 1941 )

"Here was one place where I could find out who I was
and what I was going to become.
And that was the Public Library."
-- Jerzy Kosinski, Polish/American novelist ( born today in 1933 )
-- image from the feature film "Reds"

"I have always thought that if I could turn back the pages of history and photograph one man, my choice would be Moses."
-- Margaret Bourke-White, first LIFE magazine staff photographer ( born today in 1904 )

"The Crying Game"
-- Boy George ( born George O'Dowd today in 1961 )
Video and musical arrangement are very '80's, but his vocals are astonishing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EPGhjxm0G

Boy George - The Crying Game - YouTube Boy George - The Crying Game from the original soundtrack.

Love and Death
-- William Butler Yeats, Irish poet ( born today in 1865 )
-- image: Lawrence AlmaTadema "Under the Roof of Blue Ionian Weather" (1903)

Behold the flashing waters
A cloven dancing jet,
That from the milk-white marble
For ever foam and fret;
Far off in drowsy valleys
Where the meadow saffrons blow,
The feet of summer dabble
In their coiling calm and slow.
The banks are worn forever
By a people sadly gay:
A Titan with loud laughter,
Made them of fire clay.
Go ask the springing flowers,
And the flowing air above,
What are the twin-born waters,
And they'll answer Death and Love.

With wreaths of withered flowers
Two lonely spirits wait
With wreaths of withered flowers
'Fore paradise's gate.
They may not pass the portal
Poor earth-enkindled pair,
Though sad is many a spirit
To pass and leave them there
Still staring at their flowers,
That dull and faded are.
If one should rise beside thee,
The other is not far.
Go ask the youngest angel,
She will say with bated breath,
By the door of Mary's garden
Are the spirits Love and Death.

"Writing in a diary is a really strange experience for someone like me. Not only because I've never written anything before, but also because it seems to me that later on neither I nor anyone else will be interested in the musings of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl."
-- Anne Frank, German/Dutch diarist ( born today in 1929 )

"Reader, look,
Not at his picture, but his book."
-- Ben Johnson, English playwright ( born today in 1572 )