stlbw
@stlbw.bsky.social
Posting from these notebooks I've kept forever, which I just learned are properly referred to as "commonplace books". I also make music elsewhere as @rulersstl
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stlbw
@stlbw.bsky.social
· Jan 29
"A commonplace book is a personal compilation of knowledge, ideas, quotations, and observations. It is a notebook where one gathers and organizes information from various sources for future reference and reflection. They are more like a database than a diary." @balzerdesigns.bsky.social #commonplace
"Augustine's exposition of the idea is quite beautiful. It is based on our experience of music. When we listen to a hymn, the meaning of a sound is given by the ones that came before and after it. Music can occur only in time,but if we are always in the present moment,how is it possible to hear it?"
November 7, 2025 at 7:14 PM
"Augustine's exposition of the idea is quite beautiful. It is based on our experience of music. When we listen to a hymn, the meaning of a sound is given by the ones that came before and after it. Music can occur only in time,but if we are always in the present moment,how is it possible to hear it?"
"The only answer to death, she thought: to echo back its name in that way, with all the same intensity and senselessness, on the side of life." Sally Rooney, Intermezzo #commonplace #sallyrooney #booksky
May 7, 2025 at 9:50 PM
"The only answer to death, she thought: to echo back its name in that way, with all the same intensity and senselessness, on the side of life." Sally Rooney, Intermezzo #commonplace #sallyrooney #booksky
"There was no discussion in the National Security Council or the Special Group. The operators were in charge." from Bay of Pigs by Peter Wyden. Makes you wonder about all the other things that may have gotten done that way. #commonplace #CIA #bayofpigs
April 4, 2025 at 6:36 PM
"There was no discussion in the National Security Council or the Special Group. The operators were in charge." from Bay of Pigs by Peter Wyden. Makes you wonder about all the other things that may have gotten done that way. #commonplace #CIA #bayofpigs
"The inarticulate major premise was that whether or not we had a policy, we had a state of affairs; the conclusion, that until further notice it would continue." Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation #commonplace
March 11, 2025 at 3:22 AM
"The inarticulate major premise was that whether or not we had a policy, we had a state of affairs; the conclusion, that until further notice it would continue." Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation #commonplace
"The emotional satisfaction afforded by these sadistic spectacles and by an ideology which gave them a feeling of superiority over the rest of mankind was able to compensate them - for a time at least - for the fact that their lives had been impoverished, economically and culturally." #commonplace
March 6, 2025 at 7:53 PM
"The emotional satisfaction afforded by these sadistic spectacles and by an ideology which gave them a feeling of superiority over the rest of mankind was able to compensate them - for a time at least - for the fact that their lives had been impoverished, economically and culturally." #commonplace
"In common life, to retract an error even in the beginning is no easy task. Perseverance confirms us in it and rivets the difficulty...To this we may add that disappointment and opposition inflame the minds of men and attach them still more to their mistakes. #commonplace from Chernow's #Hamilton
February 28, 2025 at 7:42 PM
"In common life, to retract an error even in the beginning is no easy task. Perseverance confirms us in it and rivets the difficulty...To this we may add that disappointment and opposition inflame the minds of men and attach them still more to their mistakes. #commonplace from Chernow's #Hamilton
Beck predicted all of this back in 1993, when he said, "Forces of evil in a Bozo nightmare." In fact let's just replace all our daily headlines with that and be done with it. #90s #beck #alternativenation
February 26, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Beck predicted all of this back in 1993, when he said, "Forces of evil in a Bozo nightmare." In fact let's just replace all our daily headlines with that and be done with it. #90s #beck #alternativenation
"I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right." #commonplace #civildisobediance #thoreau
February 24, 2025 at 6:49 PM
"I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right." #commonplace #civildisobediance #thoreau
"...yet the codified entitlements available to compliant citizens meant that if they followed the rules and adjusted to the vicissitudes of Saddam's arbitrary justice they had a shot at a tolerable life." Achilles Trap, Steve Coll #commonplace #Saddamald not sure if this gives me hope or not...
February 20, 2025 at 7:47 PM
"...yet the codified entitlements available to compliant citizens meant that if they followed the rules and adjusted to the vicissitudes of Saddam's arbitrary justice they had a shot at a tolerable life." Achilles Trap, Steve Coll #commonplace #Saddamald not sure if this gives me hope or not...
1/2 "The daily press is the evil principle of the modern world, and time will only serve to disclose this fact with greater and greater clearness. The capacity of the newspaper for degeneration is sophistically without limit, since it can always sink lower and lower in its choice of readers."
February 13, 2025 at 8:22 PM
1/2 "The daily press is the evil principle of the modern world, and time will only serve to disclose this fact with greater and greater clearness. The capacity of the newspaper for degeneration is sophistically without limit, since it can always sink lower and lower in its choice of readers."
"John is a label. Nebuchadnezzar is a poem. A monument. A swarm of killer bees let loose in the halls of the alphabet." #commonplace from Skinny Legs and All by #tomrobbins
February 10, 2025 at 8:12 PM
"John is a label. Nebuchadnezzar is a poem. A monument. A swarm of killer bees let loose in the halls of the alphabet." #commonplace from Skinny Legs and All by #tomrobbins
February 7, 2025 at 3:35 PM
"The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true, by the philosopher, as equally false, and by the magistrate, as equally useful." #commonplace #Gibbon
February 6, 2025 at 8:32 PM
"The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true, by the philosopher, as equally false, and by the magistrate, as equally useful." #commonplace #Gibbon
"Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power." #commonplace#1984
February 5, 2025 at 6:48 PM
"Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power." #commonplace#1984
"If you love rock n roll, your favorite bands give your life continuity. They keep your memories alive and accessible. They bond you to your friends. They link who you are to who you were. They endure even as the rest of your life fades into the past." #commonplace #rocknroll Long Road, Steven Hyden
February 4, 2025 at 8:21 PM
"If you love rock n roll, your favorite bands give your life continuity. They keep your memories alive and accessible. They bond you to your friends. They link who you are to who you were. They endure even as the rest of your life fades into the past." #commonplace #rocknroll Long Road, Steven Hyden
"In a manner, there was a bond among all my neighbors for they too were struggling against odds. Perhaps problems that fretted me did not annoy some of them, and then again others were confronted with difficulties that I did not have." 1/2 #commonplace #grandteton #booksky
February 3, 2025 at 6:28 PM
"In a manner, there was a bond among all my neighbors for they too were struggling against odds. Perhaps problems that fretted me did not annoy some of them, and then again others were confronted with difficulties that I did not have." 1/2 #commonplace #grandteton #booksky
"The whole philosophy of Hell rests on recognition of the axiom that one thing is not another thing, and, specially, that one self is not another self. My good is my good, and your good is yours." C.S. Lewis, the Screwtape Letters #commonplace #screwtape #booksky
February 1, 2025 at 5:03 PM
"The whole philosophy of Hell rests on recognition of the axiom that one thing is not another thing, and, specially, that one self is not another self. My good is my good, and your good is yours." C.S. Lewis, the Screwtape Letters #commonplace #screwtape #booksky
"Even as late as 1964, the Code was able to veto the movie title 'How to Murder Your Mistress' in favor of the somehow more acceptable 'How to Murder Your Wife'." Pictures at a Revolution, by Mark Harris #commonplace #hayscode #movies
January 31, 2025 at 6:26 PM
"Even as late as 1964, the Code was able to veto the movie title 'How to Murder Your Mistress' in favor of the somehow more acceptable 'How to Murder Your Wife'." Pictures at a Revolution, by Mark Harris #commonplace #hayscode #movies
"Sometimes one of the sophists might argue that what the masses like coincides with what is genuinely good and fine, but this argument always comes across as utterly absurd, don't you think?" #commonplace #plato #republic
January 30, 2025 at 8:20 PM
"Sometimes one of the sophists might argue that what the masses like coincides with what is genuinely good and fine, but this argument always comes across as utterly absurd, don't you think?" #commonplace #plato #republic
"I hate all careers that owe their existence only to the spitefulness of men." - Andre Gide journals, 1894 #commonplace #journals #Gide
January 29, 2025 at 7:06 PM
"I hate all careers that owe their existence only to the spitefulness of men." - Andre Gide journals, 1894 #commonplace #journals #Gide
"A commonplace book is a personal compilation of knowledge, ideas, quotations, and observations. It is a notebook where one gathers and organizes information from various sources for future reference and reflection. They are more like a database than a diary." @balzerdesigns.bsky.social #commonplace
January 29, 2025 at 6:54 PM
"A commonplace book is a personal compilation of knowledge, ideas, quotations, and observations. It is a notebook where one gathers and organizes information from various sources for future reference and reflection. They are more like a database than a diary." @balzerdesigns.bsky.social #commonplace
"I find these connections profound, in a way that makes me think differently about the act of sensing itself. Sensing can feel passive, as if eyes and other sense organs were intake valves through which animals absorb and receive the stimuli around them. #commonplace #science #animals 1/3
January 28, 2025 at 7:31 PM
"I find these connections profound, in a way that makes me think differently about the act of sensing itself. Sensing can feel passive, as if eyes and other sense organs were intake valves through which animals absorb and receive the stimuli around them. #commonplace #science #animals 1/3
"The play itself was conveying some devastating truth, but I was going to stay far away from that. Truth was the last thing on my mind, and even if there was such a thing, I didn't want it in my house. Oedipus went looking for the truth and when he found it, it ruined him." #commonplace #bobdylan
January 27, 2025 at 9:19 PM
"The play itself was conveying some devastating truth, but I was going to stay far away from that. Truth was the last thing on my mind, and even if there was such a thing, I didn't want it in my house. Oedipus went looking for the truth and when he found it, it ruined him." #commonplace #bobdylan
"Nay, good fellows, do not please sharp fate to grace it with your sorrows. Bid that welcome which comes to punish us, and we punish it seeming to bear it lightly". #commonplace #shakespeare #antonyandcleopatra
January 27, 2025 at 12:18 AM
"Nay, good fellows, do not please sharp fate to grace it with your sorrows. Bid that welcome which comes to punish us, and we punish it seeming to bear it lightly". #commonplace #shakespeare #antonyandcleopatra