13: Picture This
1.“The whole point of taking pictures is so that you don’t have to explain things with words.” – Elliott Erwitt
2. The best part of watching Ken Burns’ American Revolution on PBS is the artwork.
3. I could let Andrea Gibson’s poetry inspire me or I could let it make me stop writing poetry because I’m thinking that I’ll never be as good as that.
4. “It felt so weird to talk with such certainty, to say “Andrea died” when we don’t even know what that means. We actually don’t know what that means… I love to say to “Andrea allegedly died,” Gibson’s wife Meagan Falley said on Anderson Cooper’s podcast.
5. “I finally understood I am the conductor / of my own life, and will be even after I die. / I, like the trees, will decide what I become: / Porch swing? Church pew? / An envelope that must be licked to be closed? / Kinky choice, but I didn’t close. / I opened and opened / until I could imagine that the pain / was the sensation of my spirit / not breaking.” Andrea Gibson
6. I generally like blogs and reading news more than listening to podcasts or videos because listening to spoken language is harder for me to process and easily exhausts me. The critical difference between reading and listening is that reading is something you do, where listening is something that happens to you. Also, reading is 1.5x faster than audio, improves retention by 28%. More on reading vs listening HERE.
7. I trust dreams direct from the psyche more than religious or new age platitudes.
8. My three Rs are Reading wRiting and Resting.
9. I also Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
10. Without my husband, I’d have to put a “Man Wanted” ad out because without him I can’t start the pull cord generator, start the mower, pick up a chicken, open a tightly closed jar, lift something heavy, plow the garden, haul manure, change a new fangled battery, reach the high shelf or drive to Florida or Massachusetts.
11. THIS 60 Minutes segment broke me last night. I had a big cry. Steve Hartman etc. followed several parents whose children were murdered in school shootings and who kept their children’s rooms intact as a memorial, a glimpse into why they were. First for the feeling of their presence but then the sense of absence, one father said.
12. 60 Minutes is cultural staple. It’s the SNL version of newscasts, groundbreaking and long lasting for a reason.
13. I’ll be a muse in the afterlife / I’ll live on the internet / You can look me up / and read all about it… Read The Afterlife, a humorous yet sad commentary on what it has all come to, in its entirety HERE.
______Happy Thanksgiving / Thirteen Thursday
November 26th, 2025 1:09 pm
This is one of your better “Thought Provoking TT”!
#1 – “Every picture tells a Story”
#2 – I agree with you here, I find the Art the best part of the “American Revolution “ – sometimes I start to daydream ( I feel like I’m in a History Class in School) and the Art will bring me back.
#6 – Is great – I don’t like podcasts or videos – I like to read a book, article or magazine. (It’s history, current events, stories or bio’s) where the podcasts are opinions and just that!
#10 – says it all for me and why growing old with someone you LOVE is better than alone ( 4 hands are better than 2, same as two heads are better than one) !
HAPPY THANKSGIVING 🦃🦃
November 26th, 2025 1:14 pm
#6 Good point. So many podcasts have a lot of extraneous opinion making. Although there are some good podcasts, like Anderson Cooper’s on grief and some are well structured like Hidden Brain and storytelling. There’s too much to choose from for me.
November 26th, 2025 5:24 pm
I have been recording Burns’ doc, but I haven’t started watching it yet. Eventually. I imagine I’ll knit something to it.
I saw something recently about listening vs reading. It had to do with Gen X versus Gen Z. We olders had to read things as video and audio wasn’t as easy to get, so we read faster. The claim was the youngers don’t read as fast so they’d rather hear it. I don’t know if that’s true, but I’d definitely prefer to have something written than have to slog through a how to video.
November 27th, 2025 8:30 am
I loved the Burns documentary. I too prefer to read my news. I listen to audiobooks but generally it is something I would not spend a lot of time reading, some Nora Roberts books or something. I keep a list of the books I read and listen to, and I remember the ones I’ve read much better than the ones I listen to. The audiobooks keep my mind occupied while I do chores. I don’t like podcasts at all, but I know some people do. Great TT.