Just So

There's no harm in asking
Why everything should be just so
There's no harm in dreaming
That someday I'll know all there is to know
I just want to know
Perhaps it's true that some surprises
Are much better left untold
But there's no harm in hoping
That one day their secrets
Unfold

Why does the ostrich have feathers that grow in a plume?
And why does the hippo have tiny red eyes
When there's so much room for eyes to bloom?
Why do camels get the hump?
Why does the crab play with the sea?

Why does no one seem to be bothered by questions but me?

In these High and Far-Off Times
There must be reasons behind rhymes
There must be answers to every question
And puzzle, I propose
Though I've asked all of my cousins
Aunts and uncles in their dozens
The only thing I've learned
Is no one knows
No one knows...

There's no harm in asking
Why everything should be just so
(I like his young, inquiring mind)
There's no harm in dreaming
That someday I'll know all there is know
(A joie-de-vivre...?)

Perhaps it's true that some surprises
Are far better left untold
But there's no harm in hoping
That one day their secrets
(One day their secrets)
Unfold

There's no harm in asking
(No harm in asking)
Why everything should be
Just so

Anthony Drewe, from the musical Just So based on the Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling

if today were the day you had to stop dancing…

these lyrics are from A Chorus Line, a musical i have a dance chorus part in, but will likely have to drop out of because i have fractured my foot. i broke it in July when i fell off the fence i was peering over when i was lost taking a shortcut home. i have been dancing on it since then, not knowing it was fractured but feeling something wasn't right. the pain has been overwhelming at times, but it's worth it. just for the sheer joy of dancing.

Kiss today goodbye
The sweetness and the sorrow
Wish me luck, the same to you
But I can't regret
What I did for love, what I did for love

Look, my eyes are dry
The gift was ours to borrow
It's as if we always knew
And I won't forget what I did for love
What I did for love

Gone
Love is never gone
As we travel on
Love's what we'll remember

Kiss today goodbye
And point me toward tomorrow
We did what we had to do
Won't forget, can't regret
What I did for love

What I did for love
What I did for

Love
Love is never gone
As we travel on
Love's what we'll remember

Kiss today goodbye
And point me toward tomorrow

Point me toward tomorrow
We did what we had to do
Won't forget, can't regret
What I did for love what I did for love

What I did for love
by Marvin Hamlisch and Edward Kleban

dog

I have given a name to my pain and call it "dog." It is just as faithful, just as obtrusive and shameless, just as entertaining, just as clever as any other dog - and I can scold it and vent my bad mood on it, as others do with their dogs, servants, and wives. 

Friedrich Nietzsche in The Gay Science, 1887

Watcher In The Woods

“If we didn't have strong feelings, how could we love or fight? When our flesh is cut, we bleed. When our heart is broken, we cry. There's nothing wrong with that. It only becomes a problem when it gets in the way of what you have to do. You can't crumble when others are counting on you.”

Robert Liparulo

the last resort

"Although the outcome that we had hoped for did not materialise, I realized the dangers attendant upon such an operation, and I am satisfied that you did all within your power in a difficult situation. While no one could fortell the extent of the mental improvement had she lived, I think that it is providential that she should be taken as she was rather than, without the chance of an operation, that she should continue year afer year to suffer the mental agony which for so long had been her lot."

from Jack D. Pressman, Last Resort: Psychosurgery and the Limits of Medicine (1998)

Gobbolino, the witch's cat

I have just adopted a 5-week-old kitten. He's black with a bit of a white belly and four white paws. He is tiny and adorable.

He was found by a friend of a friend, who posted a photo of him on Twitter. As soon as I saw him, I was reminded of this song I used to sing as a little girl in music class. Loki is not quite Gobbolino: he does have bright blue eyes and is black, but, he has three more white paws and as much as I'd like to, I don't have magic.

The song is based on a story about a witch's cat who does not like his humble beginnings, and leaves his sister Sootica to embark on a life of adventure. He comes unstuck though, and eventually returns to the farm that he first left and becomes a kitchen cat, as he started. His black coat has faded to an "unrecognisable tabby" which is another similarity, because Loki is actually a black tabby, not "black all over".


Gobbolino, the witch’s cat

One fine night in a witch’s cavern,
Two kittens rolled on to the floor;
One, called Sootica, was black all over,
The other, Gobbolino, had one white paw.

Who’ll give a home to a kitten?
Who’ll give a home to a cat?
Gobbolino you may call me;
I want just a fire and a mat.

One white paw and a sheen of tabby,
Two lovely eyes not green but blue,
None of the witches would take this kitten …
And neither did his mother know what to do.

Then one day, when the sun was shining,
Gobbolino found he was all alone.
The witch had gone a deserted him forever,
So Gobbolino washed himself, then he left home.


the lyrics end here but I think that's a fault of the website I found them on... does anyone know the rest?

Joseph Brearley 1909-1977 by Harold Pinter

Dear Joe, I’d like to walk with you
From Clapton Pond to Stamford Hill
And on,
Through Manor House to Finsbury Park,
And back,
On the dead 653 trolleybus,
To Clapton Pond,
And walk across the shadows on to Hackney Downs,
And stop by the old bandstand,
You tall in moonlight,
And the quick shadow in which it persists.

You’re gone. I’m at your side,
Walking with you from Clapton Pond to Finsbury Park,
And on, and on.

1977, Teacher of English