leftovers

photo by T.R. Hummer

Imagination is the real and eternal world of which this vegetable universe is but a faint shadow.

—William Blake

there will be vultures

photo by T.R. Hummer

Where there’s a carcass, there will always be vultures.

—Malayan Proverb

let us eat

 

 

 

photo by T.R. Hummer

But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it: and let us eat, and be merry: For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.

—Book of Luke

Finest of all the things I have left

photo by T.R. Hummer

Finest of all the things I have left is the light of the sun,

Next to that the brilliant stars and the face of the moon,

Cucumbers in their season, too, and apples and pears.

—Praxilla

Ex Machina

The machine was obviously going to pieces. . . . The Harrow was not writing, it was only jabbing, and the Bed was not turning the body over but only bringing it up quivering against the needles.

—Franz Kafka

For what is the Heart, but a Spring; and the Nerves, but so many Strings; and the Joynts, but so many Wheeles, giving motion to the whole Body, such as was intended by the Artificer?

—Thomas Hobbes

rare in the wild but extremely important

photo by T.R. Hummer

Smooth shapes are very rare in the wild but extremely important in the ivory tower and the factory.

—Benoit Mandelbrot

why have to be human

photo by T.R. Hummer
Why, when this span of life might be fleeted away
as laurel, a little darker than all
the surrounding green, with tiny waves on the border
of every leaf (like the smile of a wind): - oh, why
have to be human, and shunning Destiny,
long for Destiny?...
                          —Rilke

The end of war

C.V. Hummer, Canute Field, Illinois, @1942

War would end if the dead could return.

—Stanley Baldwin

soon enough

photo by T.R. Hummer

I never think of the future – it comes soon enough.

—Albert Einstein

10 years willingly

A mule will labor ten years willingly and patiently for you, for the privilege of kicking you once.

—William Faulkner

And we never got the mule, let alone the forty acres.

—Charles Evers