Quote of the Day (George Parsons Lathrop, on Thanksgiving)

“When the skies are sad and murky,

   'Tis a cheerful thing to meet

Round this homely roast of turkey—

   Pilgrims, pausing just to greet,

   Then, with earnest grace, to eat

          A new Thanksgiving turkey.

“And the merry feast is freighted

   With its meanings true and deep.

Those we've loved and those we've hated,

   All, to-day, the rite will keep,

   All, to-day, their dishes heap

          With plump Thanksgiving turkey.”— American poet, novelist and newspaper editor George Parsons Lathrop (1851-1898), “Thanksgiving Turkey,” Harper’s, December 1876

Photo of the Day: ‘Wicked’ ‘Show Globe,’ Times Square, NYC

While walking away from my midtown office to get home for the long holiday weekend, I saw, on a portion of Times Square, a set of unusual objects. When I approached them, they turned out to be “Show Globes” of major Broadway musicals.

Though several musicals reaped this unusual tribute (Ain't Too Proud - The Life and Times of The Temptations, Dear Evan Hansen, The Lion King), the one that appeared to best advantage, in my opinion, was the show globe for Wicked, which is why I photographed it and am offering it now to you, Faithful Reader.

Quote of the Day (Piano Great Bill Evans, on Jazz)

"Jazz is not a what, it is a how. If it were a what, it would be static, never growing. The how is that the music comes from the moment, it is spontaneous, it exists in the time it is created. And anyone who makes music according to this method conveys to me an element that makes his music jazz." — Jazz pianist-composer Bill Evans (1929-1980), quoted in Bill Lees, “The Poet: Bill Evans,” in Reading Jazz: A Gathering of Autobiography, Reportage, and Criticism From 1919 to Now, edited by Robert Gottlieb (1996)

Quote of the Day (W.H. Auden, on the Decline of a Once-Great Power)

“The piers are pummeled by the waves;

In a lonely field the rain

Lashes an abandoned train;

Outlaws fill the mountain caves….

“Unendowed with wealth or pity,

Little birds with scarlet legs,

Sitting on their speckled eggs,

Eye each flu-infected city.”—English poet W.H. Auden (1907-1973), “The Fall of Rome,” The Nation, June 14, 1947

Quote of the Day (Sam Levenson, on a Group Very Prominent on Thanksgiving)

“Siblings: children of the same parents, each of whom is perfectly normal until they get together.”—American humorist, TV host, and journalist Sam Levenson (1911-1980), Everything But Money: A Life of Riches (1966)