Teddy_Main

In The Arena

For those that do rather than talk. Because great success can't exist without the chance of crushing failure.

Teddy Roosevelt, April 23rd 1910:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

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Categories Politics Words Tags Obama Politics

By Moscow on 22/1/09

THE RISE (AND FALL?) OF THE SEMI

The Rise (and Fall?) Of The Semi

I like them - they are a three-quarter beat to the half and full beats of commas and full stops. Prose has its own musicality, and the more notation the better. WILL SELF

Talk has been raging of late about a much neglected friend of ours: the semicolon. Should it, as some believe, remain a secret weapon in a writer’s armoury, or should it, as others have argued, be removed from our keyboards? Hmmmm...

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Categories Words Tags Words Writing

By on 4/4/08

NOISE MUSIC by PAUL HEGARTY, 2007

Noise Music By Paul Hegarty, 2007

For all you budding musicians, acoustic or electronic, for all those wishing to challenge people’s understanding of what constitutes music, for those at all interested in the history, influences and lineage of music today, Noise Music, by Paul Hegarty, is an absolute must.

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Categories Music Words Tags HEGARTY Music NOISE MUSIC

By on 3/12/07

WALL JUMPERS OF BERLIN

Wall Jumpers Of Berlin

Peter Schneider’s superb novel, The Wall Jumper, reminds us that, even in difficult times - in this case a city gripped by the effects of the Berlin Wall - there’s plenty room for a little imagination, creativity and determination. This excerpt makes the point, albeit with a decent helping of irony...

“In the early sixties a circus acrobat had used a high-tension wire as a tightrope to walk into the West. And hadn’t a pole-vaulting champion used the Wall as a bar and cleared it with room to spare? There was no end to the list, and on the basis of sheer imagination, it would be difficult to select candidates for a hall of fame (of wall jumping).

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Categories Culture Words Tags culture

By on 20/11/07

WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT EH?

What's It All About Eh?

Cyclists. Unnecessarily tight clothing. Difficult to get past in your car.

That’s about as much as I knew about those who choose to cycle mile after mile on their beloved weekends. But that’s because I didn’t understand the sport at all. And not understanding something invariably means it means nothing.

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Categories Sport Words Tags Cycling Icons Sport

By on 15/11/07

TO IMAGINATION

To Imagination

I get angry when I can’t sleep. I start trying really hard, as if closing my eyelids tight, squeezing them shut, will help. I become so determined to sleep that I forget how to. But when I forget determination and return to the beginning, to my imagination, is when I start to drift into slumber. I start to think about all the things I ever want to do; and it calms me. And I sleep. For me the imagination is a constant refuge, by day or night. I like listening to it. In my imagination, it’s as if I can do anything and go anywhere.

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Categories Words Tags Words

By on 15/11/07

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