My Virtual Reading Room

Gratitude

This week, the news of the world is bleak, another war
grinding on, and all these friends down with cancer,
or worse, a little something long term that they won’t die of
for twenty or thirty miserable years—
And here I live in a house of weathered brick, where a man
with silver hair still thinks I’m beautiful. How many times
have I forgotten to give thanks? The late day sun shines
through the pink wisteria with its green and white leaves
as if it were stained glass, there’s an old cherry tree
that one lucky Sunday bloomed with a rainbow:
cardinals, orioles, goldfinches, blue jays, indigo buntings,
and my garden has tiny lettuces just coming up,
so perfect they could make you cry: Green Towers,
Red Sails, Oak Leaf. For this is May, and the whole world
sings, gleams, as if it were basted in butter, and the air’s
sweet enough to send a diabetic into shock—
And at least today, all the parts of my body are working,
the sky’s clear as a china bowl, leaves murmur their leafy chatter,
finches percolate along. I’m doodling around this page,
know sorrow’s somewhere beyond the horizon, but still, I’m riffing
on the warm air, the wingbeats of my lungs that can take this all in,
flush the heart’s red peony, then send it back without effort or thought.
And the trees breathe in what we exhale, clap their green hands
in gratitude, bend to the sky.

(Barbara Crooker)

(reposted from exceptindreams)

~~~
This is from Punch, 1890s, entitled "Diary of a 13-year-old girl".
(click the picture, and then click again to enlarge to full size)
~~~~
Captions on the pic:

9 am: bother the morning lessons
10 am: I read an awfully jolly book
11.30 am: Exercise Bobby in the Row
1 pm: a discovery in theosophy
2 pm: sit for my graduation portrait
3 pm: I have a round of golf
5 pm: up the river; a little punting with Pa
7 pm: I played with Cousin Charlie (at billiards?)
9 pm: at the Opera
12 am: To Lady Birds Ball
...and lastly, illustrates her diary for Mr....

(Source: http://samlib.ru/k/kouti_k/victorian_ms.shtml --there are a few more pics there, check them out ;))

Basil Rathbone, Jeremy Brett, Benedict Cumberbatch, Robert Downey Jr, Tom Baker... the full list of actors who have taken on the role of Sherlock Holmes is so long that the super sleuth himself might struggle to remember all the names.

And now, Holmes has broken the record for having more film and TV portrayals than any other literary character.

The consulting detective has been depicted on the big and small screen a total of 254 times.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's creation beats the next most popular character, Hamlet, by a total of 48 appearances.
.....
Guinness World Records, which awarded Holmes the record, called him a ‘literary institution’.

Claire Burgess, a Guinness adjudicator, said: ‘This title reflects his enduring appeal and demonstrates that his detective talents are as compelling today as they were 125 years ago.

Full article in The Daily Mail