Sunday, May 27, 2007

My First Meme for YouYou

What the hell is a meme?

Is it anything like a screaming meme?

I think I figured it out, though. I was tagged by Sam of Ten Thousand Things. (Remember when being tagged meant you got slapped on the arm by your friend who had orange popsicle remnants and dust streaked across her face as she chased you down the summer hot asphalt of your neighborhood?)

Anyway, cyber-tagged I was, for a meme (still don't know what it meansmeans) to come up with 10 quotes from 10 different writers that say something about my ars poetica philosophy.

Here's what I came up with:

"Poetry is loving the names of things." (Gertrude Stein)

"I have it set so all flattery and criticism go down the same drain, and I am quite free." (Georgia O'Keefe)

"There is a beauty in the world, though it's harsher than we expect it to be." (Michael Cunningham)

"The thinking mind is best controlled by the imagination." (Carson McCullers)

Artists "love what is raw and degratded as much as what is seemingly fine . . . [They are] awed by creation and cannot let a single aspect of sensuous experience go unadmired." (James Agee)

"Craft is also spiritual." (Sharon Dubiago)

"The novel cannot submit to authority." [True for the poem too.] (Julian Gough)

"Out of our conflicts with others we make rhetoric. Out of our conflicts with ourselves, we make poetry." (Yeats)

"The most important things in our intimate lives can't be discussed with strangers, except in books." (Edmund White)

"Talent is a long patience." (Flaubert)

"End with an image and don't explain." (Stanley Kunitz)

Now, being the lightening-quick-learning cyber-riffic gal that I am, I tag:
Dustin, Strega, Ellen, Arlene, and Talia.

(not Collin because he already did it)
(not Max cuz he already gave me some skin today)

8 comments:

Dustin Brookshire said...

Cool beans. CK tagged me as well. It's hard in a way-- I'm trying to pick my favorite quotes.

Arlene said...

what a fab list, kate! i got a kick out of kunitz's words and also white's.

off to collect my fave quotes,
a.

p.s. glad to hear your mom's home free. "bureaucratic bowels" is a riot — and so fitting!

Montgomery Maxton said...

haha! not max, love it. dustin tagged me (that sounds sooo hot) so i'll have to figure it out, this meme thing. i loved the quote by michael cunningham; him and i think alike; must be because we were both born in the 'Nati.

Collin Kelley said...

Wiki def. of Meme

The term "meme", coined and popularized in 1976 by the biologist Richard Dawkins, refers to a "unit of cultural information" which can propagate from one mind to another in a manner analogous to genes (i.e., the units of genetic information).

Kate Evans said...

Can't wait to read ya'lls quotes.

Okay, Mr. Collin, aka "Mr. Brain", when did MEME enter the internet vernacular? It's weird how these things spread.

Talia Reed said...

Thanks for the tag...I'll get right on it. And I still don't think I quite know what the Meme thing is.

Dustin Brookshire said...

My quotes are up.

Anonymous said...

This is going to take me a week. I'm slow, and half-miserable, and suffering from brain drain due to menopause. I think. But it's a good challenge and will get me thinking. I'm reading a biography of Flaubert right now. Maybe I can get ten from him.

Oh, ten different writers. Okay, I'm off.

Ellen