Levity.

“It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn't use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like "What about lunch?"”

"Some people care too much. I think it's called love."

"Nobody can be uncheered with a balloon."

A. A. Milne

Thursday Pep Talk, Yo

In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this world to those who are its worst. In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title. Do not lose your knowledge that man's proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads. Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it's yours.
-Ayn Rand

March: The Month of Women

It's that time of the year: to celebrate women for a month.

One of my new favorite tumblrs to follow is ThatsWhatSheSaidQuotes.tumblr.com. It's a collection of sayings from women both modern and of our past. Here's some recent posts from the blog.

You don’t have to be anti-man to be pro-woman.
Jane Galvin Lewis

The question isn’t who’s going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.
Ayn Rand

When a man gives his opinion he’s a man. When a woman gives her opinion she’s a bitch.
Bette Davis

The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly without fear and for a newer and richer experience.
Eleanor Roosevelt

Here we go ladies. Let's March!

Words from a 1995 Speech by Erica Jong

As I work to find the right speech for our Living Museum Day, I'm reading several passionate speeches about liberty and suffrage. This excerpt from an address by Erica Jong to the ACLU Biennial Conference in New York City struck me.

Interesting enough, calls for censorship always increase when the population is extremely diverse and different standards prevail. This is almost a given: When you have an elitist or traditional society in which everybody agrees about who gets access to stuff, you don't have calls for censorship...

And basically censorship, once it gets on the books, is always used in a way, to politically harass the dissenter. The reason I remain a First Amendment fundamentalist, is because I understand as a feminist, as a Jew, as a woman who has been battered for expressing herself freely in all her books, I understand the First Amendment protects the minority, protects the dissenter, protects the woman, protects the witch.

Basically, I understand that unless you have a government of laws, rather than a government of people, you can protect dissent. And I understand, as a woman who probably would have been burned in the marketplace for witchcraft only about 200 years ago, that I need the First Amendment more than anybody does. And that even if I am repelled by child pornography or Bob Guccione's productions, that I have to protect those things, because essentially it's in my self-interest to do so.

Life

The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.
Albert Ellis

Stupidity.

We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.
Benjamin Franklin

100 Posts

This is my 100th thought from my lady brain.


Let it rain lady quotes!!

Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.
Margaret Thatcher

The more you act like a lady, the more he'll act like a gentleman.
Sydney Biddle Barrows

Dance, dance, dance little lady, Leave tomorrow behind.
Noel Coward

Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty lady for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.
Albert Einstein

You may be a princess or the richest woman in the world, but you cannot be more than a lady.
Jennie Churchill

Uncertainty and Creativity.

The future is uncertain, but this uncertainty is at the very heart of human creativity.
Ilya Prigogine

Tell me.

Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life. Show me the woman he sleeps with and I will tell you his valuation of himself. No matter what corruption he’s taught about the virtue of selflessness, sex is the most profoundly selfish of all enjoyment… It is an act that forces him to stand naked in spirit, as well as in body, and to accept his real ego as his standard of value. He will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself, the woman whose surrender permits him to experience - or to fake - a sense of self-esteem. The man who is proudly certain of his own value, will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman he admires, the strongest, the hardest to conquer - because only the possession of a heroine will give him the sense of an achievement, not the possession of a brainless slut.

- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Inspire.

"The real you is not a puppet which life pushes around. The real deep down you is the whole universe."
-Alan Watts

My friend quoted this to me. How's that for inspiring?

One of My Favorite Movie Scenes: Hook

Peter: What's the deal? Where's the real food?
Tinkerbell: If you can't imagine yourself being Peter Pan, you won't be Peter Pan, now eat up.
Peter: Eat what? There's nothing here. Gandhi ate more than this.


One of my favorite scenes is that dinner scene in Neverland. Peter Pan, all grown up and lawyer-fied, returns and can't see the fun. It reminds me a lot of improv. A lot of people who are new to improv have a hard time letting go, seeing themselves as anything but who they are at work. How can I be a dinosaur? How can I play a mermaid? It's silly and impossible to them.

Until they get it. Until they can see the colorful food. That is one of my favorite moments in improv: watching someone see the light. When I taught level one for DSI, it was awesome. People don't all see the food at the same time; it is quick for some and it takes the graduation show for others. But when people play, really play, leaving reality and work stress and social norms at the door, it's beautiful. People were meant to play, and maybe not everyone was meant to play through improvisation, but everyone was meant to play or paint or run or sing or dance or insult battle a kid. Bangerang, Peter!

Peter: Substitute chemistry teacher!

Lost Boy: C'mon Rufio, hit him back!

Rufio: Mung tongue!

Peter Banning: Math tutor.

Rufio: Pinhead!

Peter: Prison Barber.

Rufio: Mother lover!

Peter: Nearsighted gynecologist.

Rufio: In your face, camel cake!

Peter: In your rear, cow derriere!

Rufio: Lying, crying, spying, prying ultra-pig!

Peter: You lewd, crude, rude, bag of pre-chewed food, dude!

Kids: Bangerang, Peter!!!

Courage

Courage is being scared to death - but saddling up anyway.
-John Wayne

Wedded Bliss

There is nothing more admirable than two people seeing eye-to-eye keeping house as man and wife, confounding their enemies, and delighting their friends.

Homer, 9th century BC

I couldn't have said it better myself. I love the classics.

Awesome design quotes

Design is the conscious effort to impose a meaningful order.
Victor Papanek

Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future.
Robert L. Peters

I think design covers so much more than the aesthetic. Design is fundamentally more. Design is usability. It is Information Architecture. It is Accessibility. This is all design.
Mark Boulton

The life of a designer is a life of fight: fight against the ugliness.
Massimo Vignelli

A designer is a planner with an aesthetic sense.
Bruno Munari