All Request Birthday

But this time, it's backwards.  I'm doing the requesting. 

I hereby request that you, dear reader, leave me one free gift via email or a comment.  A favorite poem, a great book I should check out of the library, a restaurant recommendation, a pretty picture, a suggestion for a treat, a useful quote, a favorite recipe, a word of advice, an MP3 of a wonderful song, a compliment, or something else entirely..... 

Comments

[Ms. Feverish]

Happy Birthday!
Not necessarily a fun read, but a compelling one: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. Book club just read it and it was roundly pronouced terrific.

[b]

In honor of you and the holidays I will Squish the sun below the horizon at 4:09 pm and from here on in the days will get longer until we are sailing at 9 pm with light.

B taking credit for the winter solstice
and the smile it just brought you.:)

Poem to follow!!

[boo]

Happy birthday!
Compliment (but also true): Your writing enriches the lives of many random strangers around the world.

Recommendation for a look in the library: *Fooled by Randomness* by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. In addition to being a fun read, I get the impression that the author really means it when he says he'd rather be pursuing literary interests, cafe lounging and museum hopping.

[matt]

No sultan
who ever sat on tufted silk
Or maharajah
who palace ever built
No king or queen or emperor
or returning commodore
his fleet awash with pirate's plunder
ever knew such wealth
ever knew such wonder
or tasted sweeter milk.

No armada made with human hands
or spawn of Satan's darkest pit
No horde of bare barbarians
No formation,
No monochrome array,
No squad or stealthy team, or thief
equipped with lethal kit,
could ever knife or steal or take
this bliss.

No brazen vessel ever forged
or thrown or carved of stone
No lake, no gulf or sea,
No Atlantic,
No Pacific
can contain the overflow
of the joy
that today
is filling me.

[mad]

If you have not yet read it, Paolo Coelho's The Alchemist should be high on your list for the coming year. I am sure the library has it, as well as the rest of Coelho's marvelous oeuvre.

And for an easy, fast wintery comfort-food meal, cut a couple of sweet potatoes into long, thick slices, rub lightly but thoroughly with butter, coat the tops and sides with brown sugar, sprinkle cinnamon over it all, and roast at 375 until soft and delicious. I sometimes add a bit of brie to the top of each slice in the last five minutes of cooking time. It sounds weird, but I swear it is delicious and makes me feel warm and cozy inside.

[kmsqrd]

Happy Birthday!!
Please treat yourself with some most excellent Yo-Yo Ma.

[Scott]

"Do you know a cure for me?"
"Why yes," he said, "I know a cure for everything. Salt water."
"Salt water?" I asked him.
"Yes," he said, "In one form or another; sweat, tears, or the salt sea."

Isak Dinesen, Seven Gothic Tales

[neil]

happy birthday, your words enlighten and enrich my day...thank you and many best wishes...

Harvest moon -
walking around the pond
all night long

Its not like anything
they compare it to -
the summer moon

[Outer Life]

You seem to be in a philosophical mood lately, so I recommend Nicholson Baker's The Mezzanine, a short novel that takes place on an escalator as the narrator rides back to the office after lunch. Along the way we delve deeply into everyday life, finding hidden meaning in the mundane while applying Marcus Aurelius's exhortation: "Manifestly, no condition of life could be so well adapted for the practice of philosophy as this in which chance finds you today!"

[SF Librarian]

I just made these for breakfast this morning, and they were terrific!

Whole Wheat Apricot Muffins from Cooking Light Magazine:

1 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons grated orange rind
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup low-fat buttermilk
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/2 teasppon vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 cup finely chopped dried apricots

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine flours, sugar, orange rind, baking soda, and salt in large bowl, stirring with a whisk. Combine buttermilk, butter, vanilla, and egg; add to flour mixture. Fold in apricots. Spoon batter into 12 muffin cups that are coated with cooking spray. Bake for 15 minutes or until muffins spring back when touched lightly in center. Remove from pan and place on wire rack. Serve warm!

[Dylan]

I like that this is one of the few corners of the internet where a woman can request this and presumably not be flooded with pictures of the senders' penii.

[turboglacier]

I have no words of wisdom to give you, so I am just giving you a word, period. The word is "kerfuffle". This word is yours to keep and use however you like, for the whole year.

I was initially going to give you "callipygian", but that seemed too forward, so I exchanged it.

[Tuirgin]

AUTONOMY

In danger, the holothurian[1] cuts itself in two.
It abandons one self to a hungry world
and with the other self it flees.

It violently divides into doom and salvation,
retribution and reward, what has been and what will be.

An abyss appears in the middle of its body
between what instantly become two foreign shores.

Life on one shore, death on the other.
Here hope and there despair.

If there are scales, the pans don't move.
If there is justice, this is it.

To die just as required, without excess.
To grow back just what's needed from what's left.

We, too, can divide ourselves, it's true.
But only into flesh and a broken whisper.
Into flesh and poetry.

The throat on one side, laughter on the other,
quiet, quickly dying out.

Here the heavy heart, there the non omnis moriar[2]—
just three little words, like a flight's three feathers.

The abyss doesn't divide us.
The abyss surrounds us.

—Wisława Szymborska

[1] holothurian: sea-cucumber
[2] non omnis moriar: "I will not die entirely." Horatius, Carmina—in
reference to his written work.

[David Giacalone]

from dagosan:

first crust of ice--

the river tempts us

to walk on water

[Dec. 21, 2004, for Scheherazade's birthday]

from David: "if we're treading on thin ice, then we might as well dance!"

[Bill Muhr]

You might like "Shenandoah", by The Tony Rice Unit, from the "Unit of Measure" album.
It's bluegrass guitar/fiddle jazz, but don't let that put you off. It give me some of the same feelings I get from "Scheherazade", and the guitar sound is amazing.

Happy Birthday, and thank you for your blog!

[North Maple]

Not sure how you feel about mysteries, but In The Bleak Midwinter (and the subsequent books in the series) are fantastic.

[A. Rickey]

Isn't it impolite to request birthday presents? Nonetheless, I'll leave you the most sarky non-love poem I've ever read.

(by E.S.V. Millay)
I being born a woman and distressed
By all the needs and notions of my kind
Am urged by your propinquity to find
Your person fair, and feel a certain zest
To bear your body's weight upon my breast:
So subtly is the fume of life designed,
To clarify the pulse and clarify the mind,
And leave me once again undone, possessed.
Think not for this, however, the poor treason
Of my stout blood against my staggering brain,
I shall remember you with love, or season
My scorn with pity, -- let me make it plain:
I find this frenzy insufficient reason
For conversation when we meet again.

[OLS]

Happy (belated) birthday.

Not a poem, but song lyrics - it's the secret track from Damien Rice's album "O" and to the tune of Silent Night:

silent night broken night
all is fallen when you take your flight
i found some hate for you just for show
you found some love for me thinking i'd go
don't keep me from crying to sleep
sleep in heavenly peace

silent night moonlit night
nothing's changed nothing is right
i should be stronger than weeping alone
you should be weaker than sending me home
i can't stop you fighting to sleep
sleep in heavenly peace

It's not exactly uplifting, but I think it's very moving.

- OLS

[Sherry]

Happy (belated) birthday!

I really liked "Tuesdays with Morrie" I think it's by Mitch Albom (sic).

[anthony]

Happy birthday darling. Here's a couple nuggets for you:

"What is success? To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived; this is to have succeeded." --- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I knocked and knocked, and finally the door opened. But I found I had been knocking from the inside." - Rumi

"Many men go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after." - Henry David Thoreau

"The greatest thing to know in the world is how to be oneself." - Michel de Montaigne

And a picture of Friday night's sunset at:

http://tinyurl.com/6nyr8

love,
/aac

[Kris in Austin]

Happy (Belated) Birthday.

Here's a smile to you from Austin, wishing you the best in whatever career you find yourself pursuing.

If you're looking for some reading material, I would suggest "Summer of '49" by David Halberstam. It's about the Yankees vs. Red Sox in 1949. A wonderful read, even though it's written by a man. :)