Barcelona, Spain

Javier Jaén just keeps them coming…

Barcelona, Spain

Smart. Simple. Stylish. Sympathetic… need I say more?

Works by Javier Jaén.

Redding, Connecticut

Mark Twain, aka Samuel Langhome Clemens, passed on one hundred years ago today. The popular American author and humorist is noted (among a great number of other achievements) for his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876). A friend to presidents, European royalty, artists, and industrialists, and he was also very popular with the common man, and his keen wit and incisive satire earned praise from critics and peers. Upon his death, he was lauded as the “greatest American humorist of his age,” and William Faulkner called him “the father of American literature.”

I read many of Twain’s novels when I was young, and I’ve had the pleasure of visiting Twain’s former home in Hartford, Connecticut (where he lived from 1874 to 1891 while writing some of his greatest works) when I was teaching at the Hartford School of Art a few years back—the classic old home has been turned into a museum well worth visiting.

Here are a few of the many bon mots and eloquent lines of advice, wit, and profundity the great Mark Twain left us to ponder:

+  +  +

Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today.

Age is an issue of mind over matter.

If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.

I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool
than to speak out and remove all doubt.

A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read.

Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.

Don’t let schooling interfere with your education.

If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.

Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living.
The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

Buy land, they’re not making it anymore.

Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.

Golf is a good walk spoiled.

Familiarity breeds contempt—and children.

Man is the only animal that blushes—or needs to.

There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist.

It is easier to stay out than get out.

We have the best government that money can buy.

Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.

Noise proves nothing.

Often a hen who has merely laid an egg
cackles as if she laid an asteroid.

Thunder is good, thunder is impressive;
but it is lightning that does the work.

Be careful about reading health books.
You may die of a misprint.

Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds
on the heel that has crushed it.

The most interesting information comes from children,
for they tell all they know and then stop.

What would men be without women? Scarce, sir, mighty scarce.

You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

Whatever. (via my writer/philosopher/statistician-friend Filip Spagnoli’s excellent Human Rights blog… not the original image source, as he notes).

all your draws are 12″ long

your kid climbs harder than you do

you’ve worn out a set of cams

there is scar tissue on the back of your hands

you quit sport climbing because you can’t do any of the routes

you’ve set up a belay with the only piece of gear left on your rack

you do a first ascent and report the names of both members in your party

you say, “what?” when your leader says, “take!”

you can wear your climbing shoes all day

you don’t know what your body-fat % is

you drop your belay device and you still know how to belay

you remember when climbing gear didn’t have springs

you wake up at 2:00am to go climbing

you spend three hours removing a fixed cam

you think a bong is a type of piton

you enjoy guilt-free eating

you take a forty footer

you still use a gear sling

there is a holster on your harness

you rappel six pitches in the dark

you rappel six pitches in the snow

you drop your water bottle and it takes five seconds to hit

your best memories are from the epics you’ve had

you miss work on monday because you epic’d on sunday

a whole block of chalk fits in your chalk bag

you drive all night so you can climb all day

you’re up so high the trees look like broccoli

you wear socks in your climbing shoes

you think “beta” is a video format

you don’t want beta

you coil your rope.

Good judgement comes from experience, but experience comes from bad judgement. — John Fullbright

(sound familiar? thanks to Trango for the quips)

Oporto, Portugal

Lots of wit, acerbity, pathos, and considerable illustrative talent on display in this virtual cartoon museum founded in the home of port wine back in 1997… thanks to designer/climber friend Antonio Coelho (Toze) for the link.

(from the beyond…)

Only days before his untimely death in 2001, Douglas Adams (author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) gave a riveting talk at the University of California that sparkled with his trademark satiric wit—about, amongst a myriad of foci, blind river dolphins (in China), reclusive lemurs (in Madagascar), and a seemingly doomed parrot (in New Zealand) that is as fearless as it is lovelorn… “an ingenious commentary on his own personal, close encounters with these rare and unusual animals… revealing that evolution can actually be mighty fickle.”

Without a doubt, the best online talk I’ve viewed in months… watch it here (close to 1.5 hours in length, and worth every single minute). Enjoy!

(intention seems clear—image source unknown)