a steve @mlevel@mastodon.social

"If you have to ask, shame on you."

Louis Armstrong
(08/04/1901 – 07/06/1971)
US bandleader, singer, trumpet player, jazz pioneer, on what Jazz is

"I don't have any trouble parking. I drive a forklift."

Jim Samuels
(10/13/1948 – 07/06/1990)
US comic

"Neither conscience nor sanity itself suggests that the United States is, should or could be the global gendarme."

Robert McNamara
(06/09/1916 – 07/06/2009)
US secretary of defense ("In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam")

"Someone has remarked that 'An ideal math talk should have one proof and one joke and they should not be the same'."

Ronald Graham
(10/31/1935 – 07/06/2020)
US mathematician

"Life is a horizontal fall."

Jean Cocteau
(07/05/1889 – 10/11/1963)
French writer, filmmaker ("Les Enfants Terribles (The Holy Terrors)")

"The only problem with doing the impossible is that everybody expects you to duplicate the impossible."

John McKay
(07/05/1923 – 06/10/2001)
US football coach

Mt. Diablo from Riesling Ave in Pleasanton.

"Only the young die good."

Oliver Herford
(12/02/1860 – 07/05/1935)
English-born US writer, artist ("The Simple Jography, or How to Know the Earth and Why it Spins")

"Music should never be harmless."

Robbie Robertson
(07/05/1943 – )
Canadian guitarist, singer (The Band) ("The Weight": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-w9OclUnns)

"The world is eaten up by boredom. It is like dust. You go about and never notice, you breathe it in. It is sifted so fine, it doesn't even grit on your teeth. But stand still for an instant and there it is, coating your face and hands."

Georges Bernanos
(02/20/1888 – 07/05/1948)
French writer ("Mouchette (Nouvelle histoire de Mouchette)")

"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."

Bill Watterson
(07/05/1958 – )
US cartoonist ("Calvin & Hobbes")

"Conceit is God's gift to little men."

Bruce Barton
(08/05/1886 – 07/05/1967)
US congressman, ad man (invented "Betty Crocker") ("The Man Nobody Knows")

A David, not The David. Florence, Italy, 2017-10-02. #wallpaperseries

"If your contribution has been vital there will always be somebody to pick up where you left off, and that will be your claim to immortality."

Walter Gropius
(05/18/1883 – 07/05/1969)
German architect ("Bauhaus")

"The secrets of success are a good wife and a steady job. My wife told me."

Howard Nemerov
(02/29/1920 – 07/05/1991)
US writer ("Because You Asked about the Line between Prose and Poetry")
(brother of Diane Arbus)

"By the time you know what to do, you're too old to do it."

Ted Williams
(08/30/1918 – 07/05/2002)
US baseball player

Woman: "I've made a bet with a friend that I can get you to say at least three words this evening. What do you say to that?"
Calvin Coolidge: "You lose."
(07/04/1872 – 01/05/1933)
US President (30), VP (29)

"The immature artist imitates. Mature artists steal."

Lionel Trilling
(07/04/1905 – 11/05/1975)
US writer ("Of This Time, of That Place and Other Stories")

The fair is in town.

Swings over Diablo.