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I never leaf through a copy of National Geographic without realizing how lucky we are to live in a society where it is traditional to wear clothes.

quote by Erma Bombeck
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A Map Of Culture

Culture

Contents

What is Culture?

The Importance of Culture

Culture Varies

Culture is Critical

The Sociobiology Debate

Values, Norms, and Social Control

Signs and Symbols

Language

Terms and Definitions

Approaches to the Study of Culture

Are We Prisoners of Our Culture?

What is Culture?

I prefer the definition used by Ian Robertson: 'all the shared products of society: material and nonmaterial' (Our text defines it in somewhat more ponderous terms- 'The totality of learned, socially transmitted behavior. It includes ideas, values, and customs (as well as the sailboats, comic books, and birth control devices) of groups of people' (p.32) .

Back to Contents

[...] Read more

poem by Nyein Way
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You Wear It So Well

All of those things
Yeah, that you got to give
Yeah, you wear it so well
Hey, you wear it so well
All of those stories
Honey, that i know you could tell
Yeah, you wear it so well
And your face hides it so we can't tell
That you knew we would wear it so well
You wear it so well
Yeah darling, you wear it so well
(you wear it so well)
Yeah baby, you wear it so well
(you wear it so well)
Yeah now baby, you wear it so well
(you wear it so well)
Hey now darling now, yeah, you wear it so well
(you wear it so well)
All of those things
That make poets sing
You wear it so well
Yeah, you hide it so well
And all of those pain
That you used to tell
You hide it so well
Can't tell from your face that you knew it so well
Hey, now that you have such a story to tell
Yeah, you got style and grace and you wear it so well
You wear it so well
And you got, you got such a story to tell
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you wear it so well
Grace and style equals you so well
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you wear it so well, well, yeah, so well
Yeah, you wear it, wear it, wear it now, wear it now, baby
Yeah, now you wear it so well
And you got such a story to tell
(ooohhh, ooohhh, ooohhh)
(ooohhh, you wear it so well)
(you wear it so well)
(you wear it so well)

song performed by Lou Reed
Added by Lucian Velea
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Lucky One

Youre the kind
When you love you love with all your might and
Youre the kind
I would dream about at night
Now Im the lucky one
Baby Im the lucky one
Youre the kind
That I want to be with in the dark and
Youre the kind
Who is capturing my heart
And Im the lucky one
Baby Im the lucky one
And I have never been the one to fall in love so soon
But I could never face another night or day without you
Baby Im the lucky one
Youre the kind
With poetry and valentines and
Youre the kind
Who will never ever leave
And Im the lucky one
The luckiest girl
My, my, my baby
Baby Im the lucky one
And I have never been the one to fall in love so soon
But I could never face another night or day without you, you-hoo
Im the lucky one
Baby Im the lucky one
I said
Doot-doo, doot-doo-n-doo-doo
Doot-doo, the lucky one
Doot-doo, doot-doo-n-doo-doo
Ah, my, my, my baby
Doot-doo, doot-doo-n-doo-doo
Doot-doo, the lucky one
Doot-doo, doot-doo-n-doo-doo
Baby Im the lucky one
Doot-doo, doot-doo-n-doo-doo
Doot-doo, hey, Im the lucky one
Doot-doo, doot-doo-n-doo-doo
Ah, my, my, my baby
Doot-doo, doot-doo-n-doo-doo
Doot-doo, the lucky one
Doot-doo, doot-doo-n-doo-doo
Hey Im the lucky one
Doot-doo, doot-doo-n-doo-doo
Baby Im the lucky one
Doot-doo, doot-doo-n-doo-doo
Doot-doo, the lucky one
Doot-doo, doot-doo-n-doo-doo
Hey Im the lucky one

song performed by Amy Grant
Added by Lucian Velea
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Lucky Arms

(j.b. rudd/vip vipperman)
Hes got lucky arms
He gets to hold her
The way I know I never will again
Theyre dancing close
With her head on his shoulder
Lucky arms, lucky heart, lucky him
They dont see me standing in these shadows
She dont know how bad my heart still aches
Hes holding on to everything I let go
Sure is making good off my mistakes
Hes got lucky arms
He gets to hold her
The way I know I never will again
Theyre dancing close
With her head on his shoulder
Lucky arms, lucky heart, lucky him
Before too long the music will stop playing
Hell take her hand and then hell take her home
And I can just imagine what hes saying
The way hes smiling I can tell he knows
Hes got lucky arms
He gets to hold her
The way I know I never will again
Theyre dancing close
With her head on his shoulder
Lucky arms, lucky heart, lucky him
Lucky arms, lucky heart
He ought to thank his lucky stars
Lucky arms, lucky heart, lucky him

song performed by John Michael Montgomery
Added by Lucian Velea
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Live 4 Love

{last words from the cockpit}
Lauch procedure commence
Countdown start
10,9,8,7,6,5,4
Keep goin
Acceleration into temporal space continuum now begins...
30,000 feet and still-a-counting (live 4 love)
The attack on my plane is steadily mounting (live 4 love)
They killed my buddy, but Im supposed to feel nothing (live 4 love)
How can I live 4 love? Im calling...
Live 4 love
Live 4 love - Im calling...
Live 4 love - Im calling...
Live 4 love
Kicked out of my home at 17 (live 4 love) ((get outta here))
A real family,
Now what does that mean (what does that mean) (live 4 love)
Dont nobody know the trouble Ive seen (live 4 love)
How can I live 4 love? Im calling...
Live 4 love
Live 4 love
Live 4 love - calling, Im calling
Live 4 love
My mission, so they said, was just 2 drop the bombs
Acceleration into temporal space continuum now begins...
Just like I got no conscience, just like I got no qualms
Alpha 7, acknowledge
Now what does that mean?
Go tommy go, go tommy go
Go tommy go, go tommy go
Go tommy go, go tommy go
Go tommy go, go tommy go
So here, my target is approaching
The angel on my shoulder starts coaching
Live 4 love, without love u dont live
Boom - I take a deep breath
Is it boom - life?
Is it boom - death?
(live 4 love)
Maybe I was better off staying in school (live 4 love)
But everybody said flying planes was cool (live 4 love)
Its so easy 4 them 2 say
Cuz they never have to go through
How can I live 4 love? (live 4 love) Im calling
Live 4 love - Im calling
Live 4 love - Im calling
Live 4 love
Live 4 love (live 4 love)
Live 4 love
Live 4 love

[...] Read more

song performed by Prince
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Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society

Epigraph

Υδραν φονεύσας, μυρίων τ᾽ ἄλλων πόνων
διῆλθον ἀγέλας . . .
τὸ λοίσθιον δὲ τόνδ᾽ ἔτλην τάλας πόνον,
. . . δῶμα θριγκῶσαι κακοῖς.

I slew the Hydra, and from labour pass'd
To labour — tribes of labours! Till, at last,
Attempting one more labour, in a trice,
Alack, with ills I crowned the edifice.

You have seen better days, dear? So have I —
And worse too, for they brought no such bud-mouth
As yours to lisp "You wish you knew me!" Well,
Wise men, 't is said, have sometimes wished the same,
And wished and had their trouble for their pains.
Suppose my Œdipus should lurk at last
Under a pork-pie hat and crinoline,
And, latish, pounce on Sphynx in Leicester Square?
Or likelier, what if Sphynx in wise old age,
Grown sick of snapping foolish people's heads,
And jealous for her riddle's proper rede, —
Jealous that the good trick which served the turn
Have justice rendered it, nor class one day
With friend Home's stilts and tongs and medium-ware,—
What if the once redoubted Sphynx, I say,
(Because night draws on, and the sands increase,
And desert-whispers grow a prophecy)
Tell all to Corinth of her own accord.
Bright Corinth, not dull Thebes, for Lais' sake,
Who finds me hardly grey, and likes my nose,
And thinks a man of sixty at the prime?
Good! It shall be! Revealment of myself!
But listen, for we must co-operate;
I don't drink tea: permit me the cigar!
First, how to make the matter plain, of course —
What was the law by which I lived. Let 's see:
Ay, we must take one instant of my life
Spent sitting by your side in this neat room:
Watch well the way I use it, and don't laugh!
Here's paper on the table, pen and ink:
Give me the soiled bit — not the pretty rose!
See! having sat an hour, I'm rested now,
Therefore want work: and spy no better work
For eye and hand and mind that guides them both,
During this instant, than to draw my pen
From blot One — thus — up, up to blot Two — thus —
Which I at last reach, thus, and here's my line
Five inches long and tolerably straight:

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning (1871)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Hey Lucky Lady

Hey lucky lady lucky lady I was once the lucky lady
I was happy with my baby I was such a lucky lady
Hey lucky lady lucky lady you are now the lucky lady
Are you happy with my baby you know you're a lucky lady you lucky lady
Lucky lady that's what I was I was happy to have his love
All a woman could wish for he was that and so much more
He was mine and how I loved him before your hands ever touched him
Long before your temptin' eyes lured my baby from my life
Hey lucky lady lucky lady...
Is it love or is it pleasure do you know you've found a treasure
Are you only having fun do you know the prize you've won
If you don't want something lasting if it's just the time you're passing
Lucky lady give him up cause I do love him very much
Hey lucky lady lucky lady...
Hey lucky lady lucky lady...

song performed by Dolly Parton, music by Dolly Parton (1975)
Added by Lucian Velea
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A Fable For Critics

Phoebus, sitting one day in a laurel-tree's shade,
Was reminded of Daphne, of whom it was made,
For the god being one day too warm in his wooing,
She took to the tree to escape his pursuing;
Be the cause what it might, from his offers she shrunk,
And, Ginevra-like, shut herself up in a trunk;
And, though 'twas a step into which he had driven her,
He somehow or other had never forgiven her;
Her memory he nursed as a kind of a tonic,
Something bitter to chew when he'd play the Byronic,
And I can't count the obstinate nymphs that he brought over
By a strange kind of smile he put on when he thought of her.
'My case is like Dido's,' he sometimes remarked;
'When I last saw my love, she was fairly embarked
In a laurel, as _she_ thought-but (ah, how Fate mocks!)
She has found it by this time a very bad box;
Let hunters from me take this saw when they need it,-
You're not always sure of your game when you've treed it.
Just conceive such a change taking place in one's mistress!
What romance would be left?-who can flatter or kiss trees?
And, for mercy's sake, how could one keep up a dialogue
With a dull wooden thing that will live and will die a log,-
Not to say that the thought would forever intrude
That you've less chance to win her the more she is wood?
Ah! it went to my heart, and the memory still grieves,
To see those loved graces all taking their leaves;
Those charms beyond speech, so enchanting but now,
As they left me forever, each making its bough!
If her tongue _had_ a tang sometimes more than was right,
Her new bark is worse than ten times her old bite.'

Now, Daphne-before she was happily treeified-
Over all other blossoms the lily had deified,
And when she expected the god on a visit
('Twas before he had made his intentions explicit),
Some buds she arranged with a vast deal of care,
To look as if artlessly twined in her hair,
Where they seemed, as he said, when he paid his addresses,
Like the day breaking through, the long night of her tresses;
So whenever he wished to be quite irresistible,
Like a man with eight trumps in his hand at a whist-table
(I feared me at first that the rhyme was untwistable,
Though I might have lugged in an allusion to Cristabel),-
He would take up a lily, and gloomily look in it,
As I shall at the--, when they cut up my book in it.

Well, here, after all the bad rhyme I've been spinning,
I've got back at last to my story's beginning:
Sitting there, as I say, in the shade of his mistress,
As dull as a volume of old Chester mysteries,

[...] Read more

poem by James Russell Lowell
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Seasonable Retour-Knell

SEASONABLE RETOUR KNELL
Variations on a theme...
SEASONABLE ROUND ROBIN ROLE REVERSALS

Author notes

A mirrored Retourne may not only be read either from first line to last or from last to first as seen in the mirrors, but also by inverting the first and second phrase of each line, either rhyming AAAA or ABAB for each verse. thus the number of variations could be multiplied several times.- two variations on the theme have been included here but could have been extended as in SEASONABLE ROUND ROBIN ROLE REVERSALS robi03_0069_robi03_0000

In respect of SEASONABLE ROUND ROBIN ROLE REVERSALS
This composition has sought to explore linguistic potential. Notes and the initial version are placed before rather than after the poem.
Six variations on a theme have been selected out of a significant number of mathematical possibilities using THE SAME TEXT and a reverse mirror for each version. Mirrors repeat the seasons with the lines in reverse order.

For the second roll the first four syllables of each line are reversed, and sense is retained both in the normal order of seasons and the reversed order as well... The 3rd and 4th variations offer ABAB rhyme schemes retaining the original text. The 5th and 6th variations modify the text into rhyming couplets.

Given the linguistical structure of this symphonic composition the score could be read in inversing each and every line and each and every hemistitch. There are minor punctuation differences between versions.

One could probably attain sonnet status for each of the four seasons and through partioning in 3 groups of 4 syllables extend the possibilites ad vitam.

Seasonable Round Robin Roll Reversals
robi03_0069_robi03_0000 QXX_DNZ
Seasonable Retour-Knell
robi03_0070_robi03_0069 QXX_NXX
26 March 1975 rewritten 20070123
lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll lllllllllllllllllll
For previous version see below
_______________________________________
SPRING SUMMER

Life is at ease Young lovers long
Land under plough; To hold their dear;
Whispering trees, Dewdrops among,
Answering cow. Bold, know no fear.

Blossom, the bees, Life full of song,
Burgeoning bough; Cloudless and clear;
Soft-scented breeze, Days fair and long,
Spring warms life now. Summer sends cheer.

AUTUMN WINTER

Each leaf decays, Harvested sheaves
Each life must bow; And honeyed hives;
Our salad days Trees stripped of leaves,
Are ending now. Jack Frost has knives.

Fruit heavy lays Time, Prince of thieves,
Bending the bough, - Onward he drives,

[...] Read more

poem by Jonathan Robin
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Lucky Girl

There are some girls whod never take a chance
And yet they say that they need more romance
Diamonds and pearls are all some girls can see
Your kiss is the jewel for me
Im such a lucky girl
There are some girls whod never take a chance
And yet they say that they need more romance
Diamonds and pearls are all some girls can see
Your kiss is the jewel for me
Im such a lucky girl
You make me feel like the only girl in the world
Im such a lucky girl
You do it to me like its never been done before
Im gonna give it, give it, give it all to you
And when you look at me, I know its true
Im gonna spend my whole life here with you
And in my world, only one fantasy, you give it all to me
Im such a lucky girl
You make me feel like the only girl in the world
Im such a lucky girl
You do it to me like its never been done before
Im gonna give it, give it, give it all to you
Now, I thank my lucky stars above
For giving me the best of you to love
In love and in luck
Ive got one guarantee
cause I got you here with me
Im such a lucky girl
You make me feel like the only girl in the world
Im such a lucky girl
You do it to me like its never been done before
Im gonna give it, give it, give it all to you
Im such a lucky girl
Lucky, lucky, lucky girl
Im gonna give it, give it, give it all to you
Lucky, lucky, lucky girl

song performed by Gloria Estefan
Added by Lucian Velea
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Wishing I Was Lucky

I was living in a world of make believe
When my best friend wrote and told me
That there may be a job in the city
And you never told me
He would dream about another scheme
About another sordid hall of dreams
About a man whos king of industry
He would swear by his mouth almighty
He would buy the best
But never something new
And he never told me
I like kicking in the gutter and
Wishing I was lucky
Wishing I was lucky, wishing I was lucky
Oh I like kicking in the gutter
Wishing I was lucky, wishing I was lucky
Its the only life I know
Lie, lie, lie is all you ever do
To make me want to push on through
Cry, cry, cry cry is all I ever do
Say thats how you want to make me push on through
I like kicking in the gutter and
Wishing I was lucky
Wishing I was lucky, wishing I was lucky
Oh I like kicking in the gutter
Wishing I was lucky, wishing I was lucky
My best friend wrote and told me so
He said that there may be a job in the city
I like kicking in the gutter and
Wishing I was lucky
Wishing I was lucky, wishing I was lucky
I was wishing I was lucky
Hey son go, hey son go, to the city

song performed by Wet Wet Wet
Added by Lucian Velea
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Lucky Ones

Don't ask me how, but guess who hit the big time
Don't look now but guess whose back in town
It's so easy don't even have to try
Your the winner you can take the prize
It's a dream come true which one will it be
It's a dream come true we'll just wait and see
Only the lucky one's get to steal the show
Only the lucky one's really get to know
Only the lucky, Only the lucky one's get Lucky
Same old story something never change
With a beautiful girl everythings rearranged
Your whole life it comes to you for free
You wear it well it comes so naturally
It's a dream come true which one will it be
It's a dream come true we'll just wait and see
Only the lucky one's get to steal the show
Only the lucky one's really get to know
Only the lucky, Only the lucky one's
(Solo)
Don't ask me how, but guess who hit the big time
Don't look now but guess whose back in town
It comes so easy don't even have to try
Youre the winner you can take the prize
Lucky ones
Only the lucky one's really get to know
Only the lucky, Only the lucky one's

song performed by Loverboy
Added by Lucian Velea
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Copycat

They had an accident
And they never noticed anyway
A lack of originality
Couldnt focus on the day
So much for the radio
Everybody sounds the same
Everybody wears the same clothes now
And everybody plays the game
Copycat, copycat, copycat
Copy copy copy copy yourself
Copycat, copycat, copycat
Copy copy copy everyone else
Ive got a great idea
I will change things on my own
I see my vision very clear,
Wouldnt wanna be another clone
So much for the radio, the radio is sad
Sad, sad, sad
They had an accident
But they never noticed anyway
A lack of originality
Couldnt focus on the day
So much for the radio
Everybody sounds the same
Everybody wears the same clothes now,
And everybody plays the game
Copy everyone else x4

song performed by Cranberries
Added by Lucian Velea
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Low Society

A judge a dentist or physician
In this low society
Trade ambition for position
In this low society
Have you heard its in the stars
Next july we collide with mars
Have you heard it in the bars
In this low society
No more pay and lots of leisure
In this low society
Low society
Im just doing what I can
In this low society
But Im an incidental man
In this low society
I give away what others sell
The secrets yours so never tell
cos if you do youll go to hell
Low society
Side by side and always tired
All for one and no-one hired
All thats left is love inspired
Low society
And when the party is complete
And youre still standing on your feet
The taste of victory is sweet
Low society
And darling dont forget
In this low society
To turn off your t.v. set
In this low society
The most important thing at all
In this low society
Is not to stand too tall
In this low society
In this world that never learns
I can see rome as it burns
All the passion and the power
Turns to ash within an hour
No more play and no more pleasure
In this low society

song performed by Heaven 17
Added by Lucian Velea
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I'm Goona Copy

I’m surely gonna copy,
Be it poem, DVD or floppy,
And win Nobel Prize and trophy.

I will copy poets all
Whether they are big or small
Ya! No one can make me stop
Till I scale a fame’s highest top.

At the beginning of age
When God made men in his own image
He started this “Plagiarist” trend
Which I am not gonna end.

And what is creativity?
If not an ability to hide
a source of theft
with impunity.

When there is nothing
original under the sun,
Why should I copy not
and deprive myself of fun.

So I’ll copy them word by word
be they Pablo, Shakespeare or Wordsworth.
I’ll copy them from morn to evening
And would excel HITESH and Kipling.
Can you prove, they were not plagiarist,
And had not copy from some poet’s list.

You can inform FBI, KGB or CIA,
But I won’t stop my wanton ways.
And I will copy without shame,
Till I earn big name and fame.

I will copy till people start copying me,
And then and then only I will
give up this vice with glee.: -)

(This poem is a sequel to poem, “hay all you people that like to copy” written by Melissa Schreuder)

Dr Hitesh C Sheth
19/05/2009

poem by Hitesh Sheth
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Amazing Grace

'Live, live with me, and thou shalt see
The pleasures I'll prepare for thee:
What sweets the country can afford
Shall bless thy bed, and bless thy board.'
So Robert Herrick's poetry
has written yet his words may be
as nought compared to all that's poured
in soul-song here for my adored.

'Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dale and field,
Or woods or steepy mountain yield.' -
Though Marlowe's maid as hand and glove
swain fain would fit her heart to move,
his verse is but an empty shield
compared to all I'd have revealed.

'But Time drives flocks from field to fold;
When rivers rage and rocks grow cold;
And Philomel becometh dumb;
The rest complains of cares to come.'
Thus Walter Raleigh mocks, shortsold,
the love whose span cannot be told
no empty write I'd write, hymn's hum -
no strings save mandolin to strum.

'For thee, thou need'st no such deceit,
For thou thyself art thine own bait,
That fish, that is not catched thereby,
Alas, is wiser far than I.'
John Donne declaimed - admire his feat -
as none could e'er exaggerate
your angel wings, your beauty's eye,
your heart whose depth none chart, your sigh!

'Care on thy maiden brow shall put
A wreath of wrinkles, and thy foot
Be shod with pain: not silken dress
But toil shall tire thy loveliness.'
Day-Lewis says, - bride's white turns soot
with high ideals crushed underfoot -
yet my heart feel the years' duress
must only add to happiness.

'Come, live with us and be our cook,
And we will all the whimsies brook
That German, Irish, Swede, and Slav
And all the dear domestics have.'
Says F.P.A. - beyond my book

[...] Read more

poem by Jonathan Robin
Added by Poetry Lover
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Wake Up & Live

One, two, three, four!
Wake up and live, yall,
Wake up and live!
Wake up and live now!
Wake up and live!
Life is one big road with lots of signs,
So when you riding through the ruts, dont you complicate your mind:
Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy!
Dont bury your thoughts; put your vision to reality, yeah!
All together now:
Wake up and live (wake up and live, yall),
Wake up and live (wake up and live),
Wake up and wake up and live, yeah! (wake up and live now),
Wake up and (wake up and live) - wake up and live!
Rise ye mighty people, ye-ah!
Theres work to be done,
So lets do it-a little by little:
Rise from your sleepless slumber! yes, yeah! yes, yeah!
Were more than sand on the seashore,
Were more than numbers.
All together now:
Wake up and live now, yall!
(wake up and live) wake up and live!
Wake up and live, yall!
(wake up and live) wake up and live now!
You see, one - one cocoa full a basket,
Whey they use you live big today: tomorrow you buried in-a casket.
One - one cocoa full a basket, yeah, yes!
Whey they use you live big today: tomorrow you bury in-a casket.
Wall together now:
(wake up and live now!) wake up and live! oh! yeah-eah!
(wake up and live!) uh!
(wake up and live now!) wake up and live!
(wake up and live) keep on playin!
(wake up and live, yall) uh! yeah! yeah!
(wake up and live!)
(wake up and live now!)
(wake up and live!) break it down!
---
/saxophone solo/
Come on, man!
How is it feelin over there?
(wake up and live now) all right!
(wake up and live!) yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Uh!
Come on, man!
You gotta wake up and live!
---
Life is one big road with lots of signs, yes!
So when you riding through the ruts, dont you complicate your mind:

[...] Read more

song performed by Bob Marley
Added by Lucian Velea
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We Did It There

Every time I think Ive got you figured out
Every time I think Ive got you in a chinese box.
Every time I think I have got you nailed to the cross again...
Youre still happy, now...!
Every time I think Ive gotten you everything.
Every time I remember somewhere we have been.
Every time I think that I have reintroduced you to my life...
Youre still glowing, now...!
We did it there! we did it there!
We did it there! we did it there!
Every time look I see another place.
When I look at you I see another face.
Every time I feel that Ive been melted into a pool of blood...
Youre still glowing, yeah...!
Every time I see a place that we have been.
When I think of you I think of what we did.
Every time I look at you I cannot seem to feel prepared...
Youre still glowing, yeah...!
We did it there! we did it there!
We did it there! we did it there!
Ordinary furniture.
Ordinary room.
Glowing still for
Glowing just like you...!
We did it there.
(we did it there.)
We did it there.
(we did it there.)
We did it there.
(we did it there.)
We did it we did it... there!
We did it there! we did it there!
Things will never be the same
At each and every place place weve been!
We did it there we did it there!
That place will ever be the same!
Did something there where we have been.
Theres cruelty in the memory!
We did it there we did it there!
Every time I see another place where we have been.
It becomes a second temple.
Praying to our sins.
We did it there! we did it there!
We did it there! we did it there!
We did it there.
(we did it there.)
We did it there.
(we did it there.)
We did it there.
(we did it there.)

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song performed by Oingo Boingo
Added by Lucian Velea
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In the Waiting Room

In Worcester, Massachusetts,
I went with Aunt Consuelo
to keep her dentist's appointment
and sat and waited for her
in the dentist's waiting room.
It was winter. It got dark
early. The waiting room
was full of grown-up people,
arctics and overcoats,
lamps and magazines.
My aunt was inside
what seemed like a long time
and while I waited and read
the National Geographic
(I could read) and carefully
studied the photographs:
the inside of a volcano,
black, and full of ashes;
then it was spilling over
in rivulets of fire.
Osa and Martin Johnson
dressed in riding breeches,
laced boots, and pith helmets.
A dead man slung on a pole
"Long Pig," the caption said.
Babies with pointed heads
wound round and round with string;
black, naked women with necks
wound round and round with wire
like the necks of light bulbs.
Their breasts were horrifying.
I read it right straight through.
I was too shy to stop.
And then I looked at the cover:
the yellow margins, the date.
Suddenly, from inside,
came an oh! of pain
--Aunt Consuelo's voice--
not very loud or long.
I wasn't at all surprised;
even then I knew she was
a foolish, timid woman.
I might have been embarrassed,
but wasn't. What took me
completely by surprise
was that it was me:
my voice, in my mouth.
Without thinking at all
I was my foolish aunt,
I--we--were falling, falling,

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poem by Elizabeth Bishop
Added by Poetry Lover
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The Odyssey: Book 6

So here Ulysses slept, overcome by sleep and toil; but Minerva
went off to the country and city of the Phaecians- a people who used
to live in the fair town of Hypereia, near the lawless Cyclopes. Now
the Cyclopes were stronger than they and plundered them, so their king
Nausithous moved them thence and settled them in Scheria, far from all
other people. He surrounded the city with a wall, built houses and
temples, and divided the lands among his people; but he was dead and
gone to the house of Hades, and King Alcinous, whose counsels were
inspired of heaven, was now reigning. To his house, then, did
Minerva hie in furtherance of the return of Ulysses.
She went straight to the beautifully decorated bedroom in which
there slept a girl who was as lovely as a goddess, Nausicaa,
daughter to King Alcinous. Two maid servants were sleeping near her,
both very pretty, one on either side of the doorway, which was
closed with well-made folding doors. Minerva took the form of the
famous sea captain Dymas's daughter, who was a bosom friend of
Nausicaa and just her own age; then, coming up to the girl's bedside
like a breath of wind, she hovered over her head and said:
"Nausicaa, what can your mother have been about, to have such a lazy
daughter? Here are your clothes all lying in disorder, yet you are
going to be married almost immediately, and should not only be well
dressed yourself, but should find good clothes for those who attend
you. This is the way to get yourself a good name, and to make your
father and mother proud of you. Suppose, then, that we make tomorrow a
washing day, and start at daybreak. I will come and help you so that
you may have everything ready as soon as possible, for all the best
young men among your own people are courting you, and you are not
going to remain a maid much longer. Ask your father, therefore, to
have a waggon and mules ready for us at daybreak, to take the rugs,
robes, and girdles; and you can ride, too, which will be much
pleasanter for you than walking, for the washing-cisterns are some way
from the town."
When she had said this Minerva went away to Olympus, which they
say is the everlasting home of the gods. Here no wind beats roughly,
and neither rain nor snow can fall; but it abides in everlasting
sunshine and in a great peacefulness of light, wherein the blessed
gods are illumined for ever and ever. This was the place to which
the goddess went when she had given instructions to the girl.
By and by morning came and woke Nausicaa, who began wondering
about her dream; she therefore went to the other end of the house to
tell her father and mother all about it, and found them in their own
room. Her mother was sitting by the fireside spinning her purple
yarn with her maids around her, and she happened to catch her father
just as he was going out to attend a meeting of the town council,
which the Phaeacian aldermen had convened. She stopped him and said:
"Papa dear, could you manage to let me have a good big waggon? I
want to take all our dirty clothes to the river and wash them. You are
the chief man here, so it is only right that you should have a clean
shirt when you attend meetings of the council. Moreover, you have five
sons at home, two of them married, while the other three are

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poem by Homer, translated by Samuel Butler
Added by Poetry Lover
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