Google Art Project

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Punctuation

 clipped from writersalmanac.publicradio.org

 On Punctuation

 by Elizabeth Austen

not for me the dogma of the period
preaching order and a sure conclusion
and no not for me the prissy
formality or tight-lipped fence
of the colon and as for the semi-
colon call it what it is
a period slumming
with the commas

a poser at the bar
feigning liberation with one hand
tightening the leash with the other
oh give me the headlong run-on
fragment dangling its feet
over the edge give me the sly
comma with its come-hither
wave teasing all the characters
on either side give me ellipses
not just a gang of periods
a trail of possibilities
or give me the sweet interrupting dash
the running leaping joining dash all the voices
gleeing out over one another
oh if I must
punctuate
give me the YIPPEE
of the exclamation point
give me give me the curling
cupping curve mounting the period
with voluptuous uncertainty 

"On Punctuation" by Elizabeth Austen, from The Girl Who Goes Alone. © Floating Bridge Press, 2010.

New iPhone App?

Although this didn't work, a new iPhone app will certainly be appearing soon.

From the Feb. 28 "New Yorker"

CORRECTION OF THE WEEK

From the Austin Chronicle

The July 11 "Mr. Smarty Pants" column said that a person can microwave popcorn with three or more cell phones ringing simultaneously and pointing at the unpopped kernels. This factoid was disproved my Snopes.com, and Mr. Smarty Pants apologizes any inconvenience this factoid might have caused.

Gone

Mark Twain's letter to a friend after the death of Twain's 24 year old daughter Susy..

 clipped from writersalmanac.publicradio.org

"I did know that Susy was part of us; I did not know that she could go away; I did not know that she could go away, and take our lives with her, yet leave our dull bodies behind. And I did not know what she was. To me she was but treasure in the bank; the amount known, the need to look at it daily, handle it, weigh it, count it, realize it, not necessary; and now that I would do it, it is too late; they tell me it is not there, has vanished away in a night, the bank is broken, my fortune is gone, I am a pauper. How am I to comprehend this? How am I to have it? Why am I robbed, and who is benefited?"

The Catsup Bottle

The Catsup Bottle

First a little
Then a lottle

Ogden Nash 

Ketchup is thixotropic, which refers to its habit of changing from a solid to a liquid when disturbed. Hence the poem, widely (incompletely/incorrectly?) attributed to Ogden Nash: Shake, shake the ketchup bottle. First none will come and then a lot’ll. 

Let the hurricane swirl my heart to song

IN AUTUMN
by Rubén Darío

I know there are those who ask: Why does he not
sing with the same wild harmonies as before?
But they have not seen the labors of an hour
the work of a minute, the prodigies of a year.

I am an aged tree that, when I was growing.
uttered a vague, sweet sound when the breeze caressed me.
The time for youthful smiles has now passed by:
now, let the hurricane swirl my heart to song! 


from Selected Poems by Rubén Darío, translated by Lysander Kemp, University of Texas, Austin, 1988

Sistine Chapel

Click Here. After the file is loaded click with the mouse toward the right, left, up and down to view the work in its entirety. Below to the left there is a + or a -  to enlarge or or decrease the image. They say that it took three years to produce this presentation. (Thanks Mariette).