Don’t quote me, but it’s day #2 of ‘The Great Quotists’ series at the NDD Next up is François-Marie Arouet, better known by his pen name, Voltaire.
Voltaire is the wit of France. Born into the enlightenment era he skewered royalty, religion, pretension, society, and politics with a sharpness of tongue that no other could match.
But he was much more than just a sarcastic wit. He was an amateur scientist, working to discover the elements of fire. He was one of the first to write history in a modern way, paying attention to culture and society as much as military and political events. He was a crusader for the separation of church and state and religious freedom. He wrote more than 20,000 letters and 2,000 books and pamphlets.
Another example of a man who had humor until the end, his famous last words were, “Now, now, my good man, this is not the time for making enemies.” in response to a priest asking him to renounce Satan.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
This week I am going to highlight some of my favorite quotists; the authors, aphorists, journalists and commentators who have contributed the most over the years to The Napkin Dad Daily.
First up, Oscar Wilde
An irish wit if ever there was one, Oscar Wilde lived in the 1800s and ruled the literary world for some time with writings such as ‘The Picture of Dorian Grey’ and ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’.
Unfortunately, the Victorian laws ruled over the land and when it was discovered he had committed ‘the sin that isn’t mentioned’ he was thrown in jail. When he got out he departed for France, never to return.
Nonetheless, he did not lose his wit. The story goes that on his death bed he still had enough left in him to give what has to be the wittiest final words in history, “Either those curtains go, or I do.” The curtains stayed and he went. A variation on the final words is sometimes quoted as, “My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has got to go.”
Oscar Wilde holds a dear place in my heart solely because my eldest daughter, Rebekah, loved reading him when she was a teenager. She would always be telling us various quotes and when I was drawing the napkins and putting them in their lunches (read that story here) my most frequent quotist was Mr. Wilde.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Have you ever read a book where you liked everyone and everything they did? Did you like everything about how they behaved, all their quirks and eccentricities, all their choices and concerns? If that was the case I think you read a pretty boring book.
The essence of a story is conflict. Maybe it’s not through a ‘good vs. evil’, black and white dilemma, but in a story you are introducing characters who have to go through something. They can be very nice people, but if you don’t show some aspect of their character and their methods contributing to the problem as well as the solution, then they really aren’t all that engaging.
You can’t root for someone who has nothing to overcome. What they have to overcome isn’t always something on the outside. It’s often overcoming their own shortcomings. It makes you annoyed seeing those things inside them holding them back while at the same time you are rooting for them to overcome.
Sort of like real life, isn’t it.
Drawing, commentary and Chapter 12 by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by Kingsley Amis, 1922-1995, English novelist
The collages I showed last week were images that were collaged into pre-existing images. This week I am showing collage images that exist by themselves.
Postcards
This is a series called ‘Postcards’. They are images taken on vacation, collaged together and electronically sent out to give a feeling of where I am and what I am experiencing.
‘Our Fifth Day Was The Fourth’, photo-collageWe Saw Beautiful, photo-collage‘I Drove Through The Panhandle’, photo-collage
The Stranger Juxtaposition
The Stranger Juxtaposition series is similar in nature to the postcards in that the images are mostly taken on vacation, but the focus is on the person, not the place. They are sort of an imagined short story of this stranger I have come across.
The Stranger Juxtaposition #6, photo-collage
She had yet to understand how she could love too much. Not because it was bad but because people would be like lesser mortals and she would end up being like Jesus, without people who understood her and perhaps crucified.
The Stranger Juxtaposition #7, photo-collage
Her dream was to be a dancer from the time she saw her father enthralled by the flamenco troupe that came through her small town in Mexico when she was 7 and a half years old and her son had not even been seen in her far eye. And now her love is so deep and true that she sells her cakes at the mall and dances for him, not her father anymore.
The Stranger Juxtaposition #2, photo-collage
She had something she had seen while on the cruise affixed in her mind. It was in keeping with loneliness and she felt it was obvious to all around her as if it was an adornment atop her head. She wanted desperately to take off the accouterment but was unwilling in the end because she knew it would never be amongst her charms unless she let it shrink in place and migrate to her bracelet of its own accord. So, she let it exist, remaining slightly melancholy for the duration of the voyage.
Hey all, got some GREAT news last night!
I am going to be a speaker at BlogWorld LA! The dates are November 3-5, 2011. I am not sure of my slot yet, but I will let you know. If you are going to be there you can bet I would love to have you at my presentation and meet you! I will give more information as I know it myself.
Did I fail to mention how much I love being The Napkin Dad? That’s probably because it’s day #5 of Failure Week.
All this week I have been reading ‘failure’ quotes. I read one Monday and all week it’s been bugging me. It is the opposite of the what I wrote above – here it is: “Success builds character, failure reveals it.”
It bugs me because I think it’s completely backwards. In my experience it is failure that builds character, not success. Here is why I think this: What do you learn from success? That you are great, smart, funny, lucky, hard working, pretty, talented, savvy, better than others? Does knowing any of those things build your character? Hard working is probably the only one of the bunch, right?
What do you learn from failure (or catastrophe)? That you can be wrong, dumb, unlucky, flawed? Yes, you can learn those things. But what else can you learn? That you are resilient, strong, persevering, diligent, humble, better than your circumstances, helpful, thoughtful, caring, selfless, patient, empathetic, intelligent? Yes, those as well.
And what is character made up of? Is it made up of ego, looks, talent and smarts? or is it made up of resilience, empathy, strength, humility, perseverance, love and patience?
I have had a LOT of failures and catastrophes in my life; schools I got kicked out of, a failed marriage, rejection in the art and academic world and physical disasters just to name a few. If I had not had those ‘failures’ and not gained the resulting character I now have, I would not be able to take the successes I have had in a good, positive and mature way (which I attempt to do).
Our successes reveal the character we’ve built during our failures.
Not all parents give up some grand dream as they settle down and become parents. But many do. If you are one of those, but you moved forward and created new dreams and your children see that, then they will be emboldened to both pursue their grand dream and have the flexibility to change that dream if they have to. Your example makes all the difference as to whether they can do that successfully.
But, if you are one who just put away the dream inside the guitar case in the attic, or in the paint brushes in the drawer, or in the hiking boots in the basement then do your children a favor and get them out, dust them off and use them. Your children will be excited to see you once again pursuing a dream. It doesn’t have to be the same dream of a recording contract or a big gallery show or a job as a naturalist in a National Park. It just needs to be you pursuing what gives you joy.
Nothing will be better for your kids than to see you live the life you want to live.
Napkins don’t fail me now! It’s day #3 of Failure Week.
Here is a question: In the Aesop’s fable, The Tortoise and the Hare, do you think the hare was upset at having lost the race to the tortoise? I have a feeling the hare wasn’t upset at all. I think he was ok with it. I can see him laughing off the loss while hanging out at his favorite watering hole with the boys.
Why? Because he had excuses ready. He felt ill. He had a hard night. His shorts were too tight. He woke up on the wrong side of the burrow. His stop watch was broken. The temperature was too hot. The path was confusing. The turtle stepped on his foot at the start line.
It’s a fine line between allowing that you will fail on occasion and not completely beating yourself up over it and being content and lazy about your failures, using excuses and rationalizations to talk away your inability or unwillingness to meet your goal.
It’s important to be dissatisfied with a failure because the feeling of dissatisfaction is what will cause you to evaluate what really happened. And evaluating what happened is how you can avoid the same mistake and improve the next time out. There might be reasons for the failure and you need to know them, but there should be no excuses. Excuses never help you grow.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1865, 16th President of the United States
I fail to see the humor in it being only day #2 of Failure Week at the NDD!
There is a certain mindset I have come across again and again in my life. It’s the mindset that says, because my past has this negative thing in it I can expect to have more of it in the future.
It might be the woman who says, “My boyfriends treated me badly, so I am sure that is how all men treat all women and I can expect more of it.” Or it might be the man who says, “I always got overlooked at home and at work in the past so my type of personality will always be overlooked by others into the future.”
They are the people illustrated at the bottom of the napkin drawing. They are much more likely to fail at achieving their positive desires because they are defining their future by their negative past.
Is that what you do? If so, try defining your future by your imagination instead of by your history.
I think I FAILED to mention that it’s FAILURE WEEK at the NDD.
Yesterday our Associate Pastor at All Souls Unitarian Church here in Tulsa, Rev. Tamara Lebak, gave a sermon titled ‘Faith in Failure’. She had a lot of great things to say about it and this is one of her best lines.
It got me thinking about failure in general and how impossible it is to avoid it. It’s also unwise to avoid it. I don’t mean one should fail on purpose, or just give up trying to do a great job or achieve excellent results in what one does. I just mean that the pursuit of success (which is not a bad goal) without the recognition that failure is a possibility is basically not living in the real world. Recognizing that something happens doesn’t mean you approve of it, encourage it, want it or revel in it. It just means you understand the world you live in.
Another thing Rev. Lebak said was that if you are going from success to success it might be because your bar is set too low. To really test who you are and what you are capable of in life, you need to have the hurdles be a challenge. And a challenge means you might hit one and tumble onto the track. Why be on the track if you aren’t there to challenge yourself a bit, right?
In 1981 my art style moved towards photo-realistic drawings and paintings. As a result I started taking photos that I could use as reference for the drawings. After a while I realized I didn’t like the process of creating photo-realistic images – being in a dark studio with a slide projector wasn’t much fun – so I moved away from the use of photo references.
But in the meanwhile I had gotten hooked on photography and started seeing all the various bits and pieces of images I had been gathering as wonderful raw material for collage. I have been doing photo-collages as one of my main artistic avenues ever since.
The images today are from a number of series I did combining photo-collages into books, letters or over pre-existing images.
Rejection Suite
These two are from a series of rejection letters I received from colleges and universities to which I applied for teaching positions. I collaged rejected photographs on top of them. I left showing words and phrases I thought were particularly enlightening regarding the idea and reality of rejection.
‘Reconcile the Impersonal, photo-collage on paper, 1986
‘The Bearer of Sad Tidings / Whatever’, photo-collage on paper, 1992
The Body in Bondage
I took photos of parts of bodies that were ‘in bondage’ for one reason or another, then glued them into the book titled ‘Of Human Bondage’
‘Teeth in Bondage’, photo-collage in book titled ‘Of Human Bondage’‘Feet in Bondage’, photo-collage in book titled ‘Of Human Bondage’
Impressionist Compositions
I photographed the impressions left on the skin after things were taken off, such as bracelets, shoes, straps, etc. Then I collaged them on top of Impressionist paintings.
‘Impressionist Composition #8, photo-collage and painting, Claude Monet and Marty Coleman, 1891-1983
Impressionist Composition #6, photo-collage and painting, Vincent Van Gogh and Marty Coleman, 1890-1983
I am not angry that this is the last day of Anger Week!
If you think you are saving a marriage, a job, a relationship, or anything else by suppressing a legitimate feeling of anger, you might find you are mistaken. Note I say the word ‘suppress’. You won’t be mistaken if you feel anger, realize it’s not legit, or you can see through it to understanding. But if you feel the anger, feel it is legit, hold on to it but THEN decide not to say anything, then guess what? It is very likely it will not go away. You may put it on the shelf, it’s true. But if you didn’t make peace with it in some manner, it will be there on the shelf, ready to take down and throw at a moment’s notice.
That doesn’t mean you have to rant and rave and express your anger in a mean or violent way. You can express anger calmly and with some reasoning. Often it’s best if you can do it that way. But if something is bugging you, it really is best if you let the other person know then get over it.
The last thing anyone needs is an old offense dragged out on display when it is only your inability to move on that made it come out.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by Colin Powell, 1937- not dead yet, American Secretary of State (2001-2005)
If you want to have HOPE, make sure you know how to raise both ANGER and COURAGE to be equals. Anger if left to run riot will find fault with everything and everybody but never feel the need or ability to do anything about it. Courage left to dominate will be indiscriminate and undisciplined in how she helps others. But if they are raised as equals they will help each other make something real and good happen in the world, and really that’s our HOPE after all, right?
In spite of myself, we have reached day 3 of Anger Week at the NDD.
The second half of the quote is,
“…it is an impotent fury conscious of its impotence.”
There is a new TV show being advertised this summer. It’s called ‘Revenge’ and it’s all about a young woman who is going to get back at all the bad people in the beautiful Hamptons of New York who did her and her family wrong. She will obviously watch with glee as she spites those terrible wrong doers, finding nefarious ways to do them in.
She also will have no room in her brain for love, compassion, mercy, forgiveness, courage, maturity or kindness. Any time she does show those things it will be an act. It will be just another in a long line of entertainments about someone getting satisfaction by spiting someone.What amount of time do you take to think about how to hurt another person, either in secret in the form of spite and revenge, or in their face? What will you get from it? What are you missing out on because your brain is filled with those thoughts?
Forget what it would do for the object of your spite, moving on is the best thing you can do for yourself.
I remember my parents always arguing. My father especially was angry often. I never could figure out what good it did.
I remember being very attracted to this one young woman after college. We didn’t argue or fight in our relationship. I liked that so I married her.
I remember having a conversation with her about me being angry about something. She said she didn’t understand why I was angry, ranting and raving about whatever it was. Her question to me was ‘What good does it do?’
I remember my answer. It doesn’t have to DO any good. The good is in how good it feels to just get it out, to just express myself. That by doing that, I let go of the anger and it goes away. She said, ‘Then why does it come back? It doesn’t actually seem to do what you say it does. You don’t get rid of it.’
I remember so many years of my first marriage, thinking we were doing well and she was happy because we didn’t argue or get angry very often at each other, if at all.
I remember realizing that wasn’t true. She wasn’t happy, she was just unwilling to argue and get angry about the situation, bottling it up instead until it was too late.
I remember when we got divorced. I was explaining the situation to a friend. I was going over our thought processes and how we communicated various things. She got mad at me because we weren’t getting mad at each other. She said we should be angry; yelling and arguing about all these things we were discussing calmly. I told her I didn’t do that because I couldn’t figure out what good it would do.
Flint Creek in Fog, New Life Ranch, Oklahoma, 1990s
My daughters went to camp here for many years. We also went to family camp a number of times as well. It was down in a valley so the fog would often settle in pretty thick in the mornings.
Cadillacs and Barbed Wire, Amarillo, Texas, 2009
The Cadillac Ranch is an art installation in an empty field west of Amarillo. We always try to stop there on our drives to California as sort of a pilgrimage.
Sunrise as if I Were on the Plains of Africa
Amazingly enough, this scene was out my back door in Glenpool, Oklahoma. But it was like nothing I had ever seen before and it led me to imagine it was on the savanna of Africa.
Infinity Marsh, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, 2009
It was a perfect day for a marsh visit; cool, overcast, misty, and humid.
The City and the Mountains, Seattle, Washington, 2011
We had a tourist pass to a number of sites in Seattle, including 2 trips up the Space Needle. The girls weren’t interested in going a second time so I went by myself with my camera at dusk.
Golden Gate Silhouette, San Francisco, California, 2007
My family has a long history in the San Francisco Bay Area. I first went across the bridge when I was perhaps 11 or 12 years old to visit my cousin who lived in Marin County just to the north of it. I lived in SF and San Jose for a number of years and went over the bridge many times, walking and driving. This was a new view for me though. We took a ferry to Sausalito and Angel Island. I was able to see the bridge in relationship to the shore, hills and homes along the route in ways I had not seen before.
Composition with Saguaro Skeleton, Saguaro National Park, Arizona
My daughter and I went to San Diego to pick up a car that my father was giving to us. On the drive home through Arizona we stopped at the National Park. Caitlin started her love affair with Cacti at that time.
Curve of the Earth with Dead Tree, Volcano National Monument, New Mexico, 2000s
A little known spot in the scheme of all the great national parks and monuments, Capulin Volcano is a perfect circular cone volcano that you can walk up. The view from the top, with nothing but flat land all around, was pretty spectacular.
Landscape with Birds, Trees and Horses, Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, 2009
One doesn’t have to go far from home in Oklahoma to see scenes like this. This spot was just about a mile from my old house.
Why do those thunderstorms come and ruin our crops?
Why did that friend betray me?
Why did that other friend save me?
What caused all these animals to be alive?
What caused me to be alive?
What makes a seed grow?
Why do we die?
What happens to us when we die?
All these used to be religious questions because religion started out as science. It was the thought and the act of trying to figure out why things are the way they are, why things happen.
It did a pretty good job of it too, for a long time. But religion got stuck because it did not have a method for self-correction. Too much was invested in the answers they came up with to allow those answers to change. It is pretty much the same way now.
That is when religion and science split. Science moved forward with the addition of a way to self-correct, the scientific method, and religion did not.
Drawing, quote and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
I love quotes that bring up something I had never thought before. I love the simplicity of this one. A constant refrain you hear from opinionated creationists who are uneducated about the theory of evolution is something along the lines of “I ain’t descended from no chimpanzee!” I hadn’t thought about it before but really, how much more embarrassing is it to say “I’m descended from dirt!” Dirt (more commonly translated as dust), as you know, is what we are said to have been made from in the biblical book of Genesis.
Of course the truth is that in evolutionary theory we are not descended from chimps. We are descended from a common ancestor. The chimp ancestors went in one direction from that common ancestor and humans ancestors went in another direction. But whether a creationist likes the idea of it or not, our DNA proves we are the closest of relatives. Human and chimps have anywhere from 95% to 98.8% DNA in common, depending on what statistic you choose to believe. But the point, no matter the exact percentage, is that we are much more likely to have been descended from a common ancestor of the chimp than a common ancestor of dirt.
Monday Question: Do you know why, in the biblical story of Genesis, Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden?
Answer: Genesis 2:22 – And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden…
So, it wasn’t because they ate from the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. There was punishment for that, but it did not include getting kicked out of the garden. They were kicked out so they would not be equal to the Gods (notice it’s plural when it says ‘become like one of us’), by becoming immortal through eating of the tree of life.
The argument for Creation Science is ‘WOW, life is so incredible, there just has to be a designer.’ That is not science, that is awe. Awe is good, but it isn’t the end of an investigation, it’s the beginning. However, if you start your investigation with a foregone conclusion then you are, of course, forbidden to reach any other conclusion at the end of your investigation. Can anyone honestly say that Creation Science is open to follow the evidence wherever it may lead? I think the answer is pretty obviously no. It can’t and it won’t. Because it starts with the statement that there has to be a specific type of conscious being as a creator, it can never freely look at evidence that might contradict that. It might give the appearance of a neutral look at the evidence, but it will always be forced to squeeze whatever is found through the filter of a conscious designer. That in turn will both skew the evidence and skew the direction any further investigation will take.
Now, it is true that legitimate science can, on occasion, also skew evidence. But the great thing about legitimate science is, in spite of individuals wanting to push a certain theory, it is ultimately self-correcting. A theory that can’t be backed up over time is eventually discarded and replaced with one that is more in keeping with the evidence.
Creation Science can’t, and never will be, ultimately self-correcting because it can never allow for evidence that threatens its foregone conclusion.
Let’s start at the very beginning…of Creation vs Evolution Week at the NDD!
Would you enjoy life without the knowledge of good and evil? Not just evil mind you, but GOOD and evil. What would life be like with out EITHER of those things?
When the story of Adam and Eve was written, approximately 3,500 years ago, it was explained that the desire to have knowledge of good and evil was a bad thing, a heresy so to speak. It was then a fatal misconduct on the part of Adam and Eve to act on that desire. It was an explanation for why humans are the way they are.
Now we know there are many other reasons as well for why we are the way we are. The sciences of zoology, biology, chemistry, physics and cosmology all have contributed to our more advanced (though not yet complete) understanding of these things.
And guess what? Each one of those sciences and their early (and in some cases later) discoveries were first seen as heretical and those who practiced them were seen as guilty of misconduct. Many were thrown in jail and killed as a result of their investigations. Many who weren’t treated so harshly were still sidelined and dismissed for their ideas. Our evolution doesn’t come easily it seems. A question: Do you know why, in the biblical story of Genesis, Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden? I bet the reason is not what you think. The answer tomorrow.
Starting back in the 1980s I developed a photographic fascination for backs. It started when a model I was photographing for a project got cold feet about doing the nudes we had planned. We were already the location, a beach with dramatic cliffs and incredible textures and colors. At first it seemed to be a bothersome restriction but I soon found unexpected creative opportunities spending the day photographing her and her back.Since then I have always looked for, and found, great backs everywhere I go. The broad, subtle landscape of the back, especially when combined with clothing that overlaps it with beautiful designs, textures and colors, or tanlines that create elegant layers, always offers beauty. In the last decade the prominence of tattoos has added another element of significance and interplay that keeps me interested.
Here is a slide show of a few of my ‘Backs and Straps’ over the years.
Which one are you? Or which one are you married to? Do you think women are the same way?
Quote by Will Rogers, 1879-1935, American humorist. Did you know that Rogers was in the Guinness Book of World Records for successfully throwing 3 lassos at once?
I don’t read fiction very often. I usually am reading non-fiction biographies, histories and science books. I recently wrote my first fictional short story, Sunday in Sunrise, and while it had some elements of myself and my family in it, the story was a fabrication, a fiction. Writing it and reading it revealed things about my life that are obscured at times. Mostly it reinvigorated my sense of being positive, loving, enthusiastic and trusting in my life. It showed me aspects of myself that I have been, want to be and sometimes let slide.
Sometimes, when you are in a parched landscape, a story, whether you write it or read it, can help you see what can be there.What does reading or writing fiction do for you?
How often have you finished reading a book and felt like a new home was suddenly taken away from you. It is sad but it is also a wonderful feeling to know that home is there waiting for you if you pick that book up again. New homes are also waiting to be discovered in new books yet read.
