Hiatus

(h-ts) A gap or interruption in space, time, or continuity; a break.

"Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another."

Anatole France (1844 - 1924)

She Could Have Been A Scientist

The New York Times reports an interesting background story to Oscar winner's Natalie Portman's career: "On Sunday night, the gorgeously pregnant Natalie Portman, 29, won an Oscar for her performance as Nina, a mentally precarious ballerina in the shock fantasy “Black Swan.” Among the lesser-known but nonetheless depressingly impressive details in Ms. Portman’s altogether too precociously storied career is that as a student at Syosset High School on Long Island back in the late 1990s, Ms. Portman made it all the way to the semifinal rounds of the Intel competition. For those who know how grueling it can be to put together a prize-worthy project and devote hundreds of hours of “free” time at night, on weekends, during spring break and summer vacation, doing real, original scientific research while one’s friends are busy adolescing, the achievement is testimony enough to Ms. Portman’s self-discipline and drive.  While carrying out her investigation into a new, “environmentally friendly” method of converting waste into useful forms of energy, and maintaining the straight-A average she’d managed since grade school, Ms. Portman already was a rising movie star. She’d been in films directed by Woody Allen, Tim Burton and Luc Besson, appeared opposite Julia Roberts, Jack Nicholson, Matt Dillon, Uma Thurman, Drew Barrymore and I’m getting tired of typing celebrity names here. She took on the major role of Queen Amidala in the Star Wars prequel trilogy that rocketed her to international fame. And then she went on to Harvard University to study neuroscience and the evolution of the mind."

Bach

"Bach opens a vista to the universe. After experiencing him, people feel there is meaning to life after all."

Helmut Walcha

Audition

To sit in an audition jury is less fun than most people think. Most of all for a sensitive writer. It's always an awkward situation to watch a professional actor/singer show off to get a job. I tend to suffer with the contenders. Sometimes I even get upset. This happens when a gifted singer presents a song that is beyond his abilities. Deplorably that is not an exception.

How To Avoid A Fall

"No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings."

William Blake

The Inspiration Of Anger

"Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you'll ever regret."

Ambrose Bierce

Better

"It is better to be hated for what you are than loved for what you are not."

André Gide

An Understanding Agent

"Sometimes a writer may look for more than questions or may ask for concrete suggestions, but one way or another the choices for the work have to be organic and emotionally logical to the writer, or else they do come from someone else, will be false and stilted, will take away from the organic rhythm of the work, and the play invitably suffers. I don't believe play doctoring works. Nurturing does." 

Peregrine Wittlesey

The Scent Of Women

Recent studies have found large changes in cues and behavior when a woman is at the stage of peak fertility. Lap dancers get much higher tips. The pitch of a woman’s voice rises. Men rate her body odor as more attractive and respond with higher levels of testosterone. At this peak-fertility stage, women are more interested in going to parties and dance clubs, and they dress more attractively (as judged by both men and women). Some women’s attitudes toward their own partners also change, according to research by Dr. Haselton along with a U.C.L.A. colleague, Christina Larson, and Steven Gangestad of the University of New Mexico.

Driving Out Hate

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Martin Luther King, Jr.