Honour is a gift a man gives himself

Father, will McGregors ever be kings again?

All men with honour are kings, but not all kings have honour.

What is honour?

Honour is what no man can give you and none can take away. Honour is a gift man gives himself.

Do women have it?

Women are the heart of honour, and we cherish and protect it in them. You must never mistreat a woman or malign a man, nor stand by and see another do so.

How do you know if you have it?

Never worry on the getting of it. It grows in you and speaks to you. All you need do is listen.

-Raibeart Ruadh MacGregor

Homer in the moonlight

Since I have nothing to do and nothing to think about doing, I'm going to describe my ideal on this sheet of paper -

The sensibility of Mallarme in the style of Vieira; to dream like Verlaine in the body of Horace; to be Homer in the moonlight.

To feel everything in every way; to be able to think with the emotions and feel with the mind; not to desire much except with the imagination; to suffer with haughtiness; to see clearly so as to write accurately; to know oneself through diplomacy and dissimulation; to become naturalized as a different person, with all the necessary documents; in short, to use all sensations but only on the inside, peeling them all down to God and then wrapping everything up again and putting it back in the shop window like the sales assistant I can see from here with the small tins of a new brand of shoe polish.

All these ideals, possible or impossible, now end. Now I face reality, which isn't even the sales assistant (whom I don't see), only his hand, the absurd tentacle of a soul with a family and a fate, and it twists like a spider without a web putting back tins of polish in the window.

And one of the tins fell, like the Fate of us all.

- Bernardo Soares

What is Grass?

Nosce Te Ipsum

The old woman gives you a cookie and points to the cross-stiched sign that hangs above the kitchen door.

"It means, 'Know Thyself'", she says, drawing a cigarette from the pack she pulls from her apron pocket.

"The thing is," she pauses to strike a match, lighting her cigarette, inhaling slowly, "you never know, do you?". She exhales, the smoke casting a blue aura over the kitchen table at which she has seated herself heavily.

You blink, look away, out the open kitchen window. The sunlight casting slight shadows on the old sink and floor through the whisps of smoke. "Why am I here?"

"Ahh, yes well. If I told you that, you'd already know, wouldn't you?"

You look at her, a confused line crossing your face.

She leans back in her chair and looks up at you. "So why are you here?"

"I don't know. I don't remember. I was walking down the street, walking home. Then I opened the door and....I.....uh......."

"Go on, eat your cookie. Maybe it'll help."

"It's weird. I don't really remember getting here. Am I in the wrong place? Oh god, I'm sorry, I must have been completely lost in thought or something and wandered in, oh I'm so sorry. I should go..."

"No, no. Stay. It's alright. I like the company."

"But I'm not supposed to be here."

"Then where are you supposed to be?"

"I.....I.....can't seem to......", you look around, behind you through the kitchen door. It leads out into a living room. "I just can't seem to remem.......sorry I just....I"

"Hey there, don't worry about it. The only place to be right now is where you are, right now. And don't worry about that old sign, I just like the way it looks over the door there. Don't take it seriously."

"Who are you?"

"Well, that depends I suppose, on who you are."

You feel a bit dizzy, keep looking around, over your shoulder, out the window, back to the old woman smoking her cigarette at the kitchen table. "But I....I should be...."

"Look hon, don't worry about it. Why don't you sit down and eat your cookie. We'll talk awhile and get you all straightened out. I promise."

You look around again, then move to the chair opposite her, pull it out and sit, awkwardly.

"Go on, take a bite. I promise you'll like it, and by the time your done you'll feel right as rain."

You look at the cookie in your hand, raise it to your mouth, and take a bite.

Willy Wonka quotes poetry

One of my favorite lines comes from a nineteenth century poet named O'Shaughnessy. The poem is an Ode from O'Shaughnessy's Music and Moonlight. In the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, with Gene Wilder, Wonka quotes the first two lines.

 . , . , . , . , . , . , . , . , . , .

We are the music makers,

And we are the dreamers of dreams,

Wandering by lone sea-breakers,

And sitting by desolate streams;

World-losers and world-forsakers,

On whom the pale moon gleams:

Yet we are the movers and shakers

Of the world for ever, it seems

We, in the ages lying,

In the buried past of the earth,

Built Nineveh with our sighing,

And Babel itself in our mirth;

And o'erthrew them with prophesying,

To the old of the new world's worth

One man with a dream, at pleasure,

Shall go forth and conquer a crown;

And three with a new song's measure,

Can trample a kingdom down

Great hail! we cry to the comers

From the dazzling unknown shore;

Bring us hither your sun and your summers;

And renew our world as of yore;

You shall teach us your song's new numbers,

And things that we dreamed not before:

Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers,

And a singer who sings no more