Day 30: "O Captain, My Captain!"

This is one of my favorite poems, written by Walt Whitman. I thought it was fitting since it's Memorial Day.

O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!	5
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
2 O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;	10
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,	15
You’ve fallen cold and dead.
3 My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;	20
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

I hope your Memorial Day has been good, that you enjoy some sun, some camping, or just holiday stuff! I'm watching "All the President's Men" with Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman about the Watergate controversy--so good!

Day 29: "The Quest" from Man of La Mancha

This song always gives me hope, and since I am at a place in my life where I need lots of it, and strength to continue on in spite of hardship, I decided (since it has been in my head for the last little while as well) to give this to you as my reading for the day. My favorite rendition of this song is done by Brian Stokes Mitchell, a man among men...:) He can sing like an angel, and with POWER! If you ever want to look it up, just go to a search engine and type "The Impossible Dream" lyrics....it is so good, and it will give you what you need to carry on in this chaotic thing called life. The musical is about Don Quixote and his quest for Dulcinea, then, according to my dad, he gets taken off to be executed for being insane...that is not like the book at all, and I definitely need to see the musical to make sure (I definitely want to see it anyway!). The book Don Quixote is also amazing--do not be deterred by the fact that it's a thousand pages long (and I am not kidding!). It was an amazing experience to read it, and I seriously would suggest it to anyone.

The Impossible Dream

Lyrics by Joe Darion
Music by Mitch Leigh

To dream the impossible dream,
to fight the unbeatable foe,
to bear with unbearable sorrow,
to run where the brave dare not go.

To right the unrightable wrong,
to love pure and chaste from afar,
to try when your arms are too weary,
to reach the unreachable star.

This is my quest,
to follow that star --
no matter how hopeless,
no matter how far.

To fight for the right
without question or pause,
to be willing to march into hell for a
heavenly cause.

And I know if I'll only be true to this
glorious quest
that my heart will be peaceful and calm
when I'm laid to my rest.

And the world will be better for this,
that one man scorned and covered with scars
still strove with his last ounce of courage.
To reach the unreachable stars.

Day 28: The Reluctant Dragon & Kill the Wabbit

You must forgive me, but I have fallen ill, and so I will not be able to give you a reader's opinion on a book specifically. I have, however, for your entertainment and pleasure, some poetry and opera in the form of cartoons. These still are literary, just in a different form than normal. If these links end up no longer working after a while, I will give you the titles so that you can look them up on Google or Youtube. The first link is to The Reluctant Dragon, a really funny Disney cartoon (1941) about a dragon who is a poet and doesn't want to fight.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuA8K1mQWMc
This next link is a Looney Tunes cartoon set to "Ride of the Valkyries"....a funny cartoon and, for the "elite set", a way for them to get their dose of art. It's officially called "What's Opera, Doc?"--a classic battle between Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny set to classical music. Sweet.
http://www.jogyjogy.com/watch.php?id=19827

Day 27: The Song of Hiawatha: Hiawatha's Childhood and Hiawatha's Departure

My dad has recited pieces of this for a long time, ever since I was young, and so I decided to read it--or parts of it. The poem is gigantor...each section has several stanzas, and I think there's 15-20 parts....long poem. Anyway, I decided to read Hiawatha's childhood, which was good. Nakomis takes care of him, and like all children, he asks what the sounds of the night are, like owls, crickets and things, and she patiently answers him. I liked this section because it's so like kids--whatever age, whatever place you live in, kids are just as curious about everything...Longfellow was right on the money. Hiawatha's Departure, the next section I read, is really interesting, because Hiawatha receives the white man's religion with gladness and peace. I'm not against that, but I wonder if it's actually true...If Hiawatha was a real chief (which he probably isn't), all he would have received from the white man is disease and possibly religion, but not so easily as they make it sound, especially in Longfellow's times. But it's nice to think that they were well received; the explorers, on the other hand, were nightmares--they just wiped out everybody searching for gold and land, since they were sponsored by the royalty of various rich countries to discover the rest of the world. I'm not saying doubt the good relations between Hiawatha and the white man, but don't forget that our real history also holds some dark marks on us--disease, genocides, and greed.

Day 26: Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader

Ok, this book is awesome! It's a book about how a reader who is an author thinks--really. This lady even proofreads like I do; she reads everything and looks so closely that she even edits menus. I totally do that! I didn't know that other people do it, but I'm glad that it's not just me. There's another chapter about merging libraries and inscriptions...I love the inscriptions chapter, because she explains how important personal inscriptions are, and it makes you wonder about the history of the people included in the inscription...At least I've always wanted to find out. I've never found a book with an inscription yet that I've bought, but if I ever buy an old book, I will be searching for inscriptions and marginalia. That reminds me of a time that I wrote a ton of marginalia in a copy of The Odyssey when I was a Freshman in college at BYU--It included movie quotes and quotes from an all-nighter, soon followed up by another all-nighter and Parsifal. Quotes like "She's a witch, burn her!" in the margins where Circe tricks Odysseus on her island...this was like four in the morning, and I sold it back to the BYU bookstore. Whoever has the book now probably either thinks I was on something or gets a good laugh out of it...hopefully the latter. I love notes like that from other people in books. It gives you insight into another person's life--someone who could be your friend through the book. Anyway, anyone who wants to understand a writer's mind should read this book! Huzzah!

Day 25: The Story of Ferdinand

A quarter of the way there! Wow....and I had a really good day, too. I went to the Bainbridge Ferry and the Frye Museum in Washington with my friend's mom Krista Lee. It was really fun and different, and I live in a landlocked place, so I'm not near a sea or ocean like Washington State. It was awesome! I saw lots of art, modern and classic, and saw Seattle from a distance....The Space Needle, where I will be going sometime this week, was always in the movies but I never saw it up close until now. So cool! And to top it off I read the story of Ferdinand, which makes me smile. I had never read the book, but I saw the Disney cartoon of it when I was a kid, and I always enjoyed that. It's pretty close to the book, and it was Disney....Who doesn't love Disney? The illustrations are great too, and although I had read many books as a child, I for some reason never saw this one until now (and in The Blindside, when Sandra Bullock reads it to her kids) other than the cartoon, which was done in the late 1930's I think. The cartoon belonged with a series, which included "Lambert the Sheepish Lion" and "Willy the Whale"....which are all great, kid-friendly cartoons unlike the stuff we see now. But that is just my soapbox on cartoons...don't worry about it, but if you're curious, read this book and watch the cartoons on Youtube....along with "The Reluctant Dragon", another old (and funny) Disney cartoon.

Day 24: The Scarlet Pimpernel

They seek him here,
they seek him there;
Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven?--Or is he in hell
That demmed elusive Pimpernel.
This is a book for anyone who loves action, heroism, adventure and, of course, romance. The scarlet pimpernel itself is a "humble wayside flower" but the hero that bares the name is a man of cunning, strength and charity which blesses the people of France in 1792, the Reign of Terror with Madame la guillotine. There are also several movie versions, the best of which I think is The Scarlet Pimpernel (1982) starring Anthony Andrews, Jane Seymour, and Ian McKellen. This movie does not follow the original book too much, but that's because it takes two of the books (There are actually thirteen, but only the first one is still in print...:) ) and mixes them together. It is sooo good! There is also the musical of The Scarlet Pimpernel, which has great music and great dialogue. The Scarlet Pimpernel is all around awesome....and to think it was rejected by several publishers before it was received by the general public. Food for thought.