Saturday Special: Arts & Entertainment

Favorite Quote or Saying?
"On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: Either you will reach a point higher up today or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow. (Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, 1844 – 1900)

Favorite Line from a Play or Movie?
Ray, people will come Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won't mind if you look around, you'll say. It's only $20 per person. They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack.

And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray.

The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.
(James Earl Jones as Terrence Mann in Field of Dreams)

Favorite TV Show of All Time?
Everybody Loves Raymond, MASH, Frasier, Wonder Years

Favorite Poem or Ode

Flock by Billy Collins
It has been calculated that each copy of the Gutenburg Bible...required the skins of 300 sheep. (from an article on printing)

I can see them squeezed into the holding pen
behind the stone building
where the printing press is housed.

all of them squirming around
to find a little room
and looking so much alike

it would be nearly impossible
to count them.
and there is no telling

which one will carry the news
that the Lord is a shepherd
one of the few things they already know.