Overheard at Table 3: Lucky and Otis Discuss the Youngest Poet at a Presidential Inauguration

 https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jan/19/amanda-gorman-youngest-poet-to-recite-at-a-presidential-inauguration-joe-biden

Lucky Moran: Did you hear NPR this morning?

Otis Redwing:  Nah.  That's why I have you.

Lucky: Biden's gonna have the youngest person ever to give a poem at the inauguration.

Otis: That's cool.

Lucky: Yeah ... except when they were interviewing her, I heard her mispronounce Harris's name. She said, "Ka-MAH-la" instead of "KOM-a-lah"

Otis: and ...

Lucky: Just wondering when when she's gonna be called out for micro-aggression.

Otis: Dude, don't be THAT guy.

Lucky:  Too late!  Already tweeting it!

Overheard at Table 2: Grit to Great

 

Grit to Great: How Perseverance, Passion, and Pluck Take You from Ordinary to Extraordinary

by Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval

You will know them as the advertising agency behind the AFLAC duck.  There is some interesting bits about them explaining that it was a team effort and took months to finally come up with it.  These things don't just spill out of a person's head in an instant (regardless of what you see in movies, other ads, and self-help guides).

Currently, after reading a few of these books and having worked for over 30 years, what I've observed is that success comes from a mixture of three main factors: Talent, Endurance, and Luck (or, good Fortune/the stars aligning/whatever you wanna call it).  This book focuses on the need for Endurance (or, as they call it, "Grit").

A few notable sections include:

    Page 24: General George S Patton famously defined courage as "fear holding on a minute longer."

    Page 26: World-renowned cellist Pablo Casals, asked the age of ninety-three why he continued to practice three hours a day, replied, "I'm beginning to notice some improvement."

    Page 28: The quote that opens Chapter Two" "Talent is cheaper than table salt.  What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work." - Stephen King

    Page 36: A passage focusing on Dave Thomas says that "He would quote [his] Grandma Minnie's sage advice decades later, after he had become a grandfather himself, 'Hard work is good for the soul,' she would say, 'and it keeps you from feeling sorry for yourself, because you don't have time.'"

Overheard at Booth 3: We Remember

We Remember

But do we really?

Or do we remember
slantways?

What happens when there
is none left to remember the smell
of the body of those who threw 
themselves against the electric 
fence?

What then?

There will be nothing left
but a child's drawing.

MR

2021-0117

posted for #mentalhealthprompts 2021-0117

in honor of upcoming REMEMBERANCE DAY

commemorating the liberation of Auschwitz

Overheard at Table 3: Today Going to Work

The couple meet each other at the Zen and Tao Acoustic Café and slide into Booth Three.

The husband smiles and says, "I saw a beautiful woman today."

"What?!" she says, ready to get jealous.

"Yes.  She drove by me today on the highway on the way to work.  She was driving a slick Infiniti."

That's her car.  She smiles and says, "Well, I saw a cute guy on the highway, too."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah," she says, "I was coming up on this guy going slow and I thought, 'God what's this grandpa doing out this early in the morning?' and as I passed by I saw that it was YOU!"

"Ha. Ha."

Overheard at Table 3: Comedy

 

Lucky Moran:  All the world's a comedy!

Otis Redwing: Some are the setup ...

Lucky Moran: ... and some are the punchline!

posted as #Storyin12 2021-0111

Overheard at Table 1: DC Breach

 
DC BREACH
(after Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold)
 
DC is calm tonight.
The streets are full, the moon lies fair
Upon the Capitol Building, the boys, proud
Move freely through the streets,
Taking selfies with the Capitol Police.
 
Come to the window love, sweet
Is the night air.  I have the sign, half-ripped
From Nancy Pelosi’s wall.  We will wave it
Wildly above our heads, let the others spray
Their cheers and go, rambling across the
Capitol steps.  There is no one to stop us now.
 
General Lee long ago
Heard it in Virginia, and it brought
Into his mind the back and forth struggle
Toward ultimate victory; we also
Can find in this sound tonight,
What we hear from the waters of the reflecting pool,
The sound of our righteousness.
 
A Sea of Faith
Was, once upon a time, something that all Patriots
Carried in their hearts, the way they wore
Their powder in their packs.
But now I hear it come roaring back,
Back into the fore
Ground of our minds, the Faith that
Our leader, more mysterious than the night-wind,
More powerful than Everest, will
Only move us forward, never
Retreating, until we shear down these
Vast edges of the naked
Pansies of the world.
 
Hey babe! I’ll be true
To you if you’ll be true to me!  The world is
At our fingertips.  The Libtards can’t stop us now.
You thought it was all but a dream, but
This, this is the American Dream, the dream
That if you want it, you can take it, come!
Come and take it, babe! Let’s do it, right here
Right now, window open, displaying ourselves
To the world, like our proud, strong, firm Revolution
Sweeps across the city and takes flight,
While the ignorant Congressional folks argue long into the night.
 
 
MR
2020-0107

Overheard at Table 2: Inherit the Moon

 

We do not all inherit the moon.  But most of us are bathed in its light.