Quote of the Day

A few years ago, I'd wake up every morning, check the headlines on my phone, and feel as if the world had gotten dumber and meaner overnight.  Meanwhile, I'd been writing and making art for more than a decade, and it didn't seem to be getting any easier.  Isn't it supposed to get easier?  Everything got better for me when I made peace with the fact that it might not ever get easier.  The world is crazy.  Creative work is hard.  Life is short and art is long.

-- Austin Kleon, Keep Going, p. 1

Quote of the Day

I think I need to keep being creative, not to prove anything but because it makes me happy just to do it...I think trying to be creative, keeping busy, has a lot to do with keeping you alive.

-- Willie Nelson

Quote of the Day

People will often be polite to you in person, while advancing policies that harm you and your family.  You will be polite to them in turn, but you need not stand for such harms.  Instead, you push back, honestly and emphatically.  So it goes, in the public square.

-- Pete Buttigieg

Quote of the Day

Your time in the closet and your journey to coming out belong to you.  You are not required to open healed wounds or write lengthy threads in order to explain your worth to others who aren't willing to see it themselves.

-- Chasten Buttigieg

Quote of the Day

And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.

-- John Steinbeck

Jazz, Jokes and Jack

Last night, I was thrilled to attend the book release party for my poetry professor Jack Ridl's brand new book, Saint Peter and the Goldfinch, at the Douglas United Church of Christ.  It was an evening of jazz, jokes, and, of course, poetic journeys with Jack.