Quote of the Day (William Carlos Williams, on the ‘Quiet Heaven’ of His Lover’s Eyes)

“We sit and talk,

quietly, with long lapses of silence

and I am aware of the stream

that has no language, coursing

beneath the quiet heaven of

your eyes

which has no speech.” ― American poet William Carlos Williams (1883-1963), Paterson (1946-1958)

Quote of the Day (James Thurber, Parodying the Femme Fatale)

“Then she came into the room. She was tall and thin and had a white frowning forehead and soft eyes. She wasn’t much to look at but she was something to think about….She leaned over the chair where I was sitting and bit me in the ear.”—American humorist James Thurber (1894-1961), “Hell Only Breaks Loose Once” (written after reading James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice), in The Middle Aged Man on the Flying Trapeze (1935)

(The image accompanying this post is from the original film adaptation of The Postman Always Rings Twice, starring Lana Turner and John Garfield. Needless to say, the smoldering Ms. Turner was far closer to the conception of Cain’s femme fatale than the woman in Thurber’s hilarious parody.)

Quote of the Day (Luke Matheny, With the Best Line of the Oscars)

“I should’ve got a haircut.”--Luke Matheny, winner of the Oscar for live-action short for his film God of Love, gasping in astonishment before a worldwide audience of millions at his victory last night

You got that right, dude! How many times did your mom tell you this?

Now you learn, too late! Your ‘do is a character unto itself--sort of like John Turturro’s astonishing George S. Kaufman tonsorial tribute in Barton Fink.

As another winner from last night, director Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech), might say, the moral of this story is simple: Listen to your mother!

Quote of the Decade (Andy Borowitz, Summing Up 10 Years in Initials)

“This decade went from Y2K to WTF. I think those are the bookends.”—Humorist Andy Borowitz on the Leonard Lopate Show, WNYC-FM, December 30, 2009

Hasta la vista, ‘00s! Happy New Year, faithful readers!