“TIME FLIES LIKE AN ARROW …”
This penultimate day
of 2013, it sure seems as if “Time flies like an arrow.”
The one, the only Groucho (Marx) made the observation that
I’ve repurposed as a perhaps painfully appropriate day-before-New Year’s Eve TGIM
headline.
And, being Groucho, after a pause he added:
“…
Fruit flies like a banana.”
I’ve always liked
that quip. I particularly like the wordplay. It catches you off guard.
·
The first line sets a contemplative tone then,
just when you figure the funny guy’s about to wax philosophic –
·
It flips the whole thing on its head and gives
you a split-second “What???” moment until
you process the changed-up meaning of the words.
·
And then it makes you (or at least me) smile.
TGIM ACTION IDEA: I like to repeat it and close with it after saying
a few perhaps serious, heartfelt words at someone’s birthday or anniversary
celebration or such.
TGIM END-OF-2013 ACTION IDEA: And I think it’s a useful wrap up
when it comes to year-end reminiscences.
How about you? Will
you be among the midnight revelers tomorrow evening who mark the passage to 2014
with a raised glass, a rendition of Auld
Lang Synge, an affectionate hug and possibly kiss, and perhaps a few appropriate
words?
What will you be thinking?
What will you say?
Here are some additional seasonably suitable quotable quotes
– a few thoughtfully witty in the spirit of Groucho’s -- that might prove
useful as idea starters or for “borrowing” as your big finish tomorrow evening:
“An optimist stays up
until midnight to see the New Year in.
A pessimist stays up
to make sure the old year leaves.”
Folksy columnist Bill Vaughan (1915-1977) came to that
conclusion.
“New Year's Day - Now
is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week
you can begin paving hell with them as usual.”
The ever-quotable Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain (1835-1910)
added his cynical twist to resolution setting.
“Good resolutions are
simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account."
Irish writer and poet Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) quipped that.
“I think in terms of
the day's resolutions, not the year's.”
Sculptor Henry Moore (1898-1986) shaped that not-so-abstract
idea.
“I made no resolutions for the New Year. The
habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too
much of a daily event for me.
Diarist and free spirit Anaïs Nin (1903-1977) shared that
personal truth, similar to Henry Moore’s.
“But can one still
make resolutions when one is over forty? I live according to twenty-year-old
habits.”
Nobel Prize winner Andre Gide (1869-1951) set forth this
query and observation.
“New Year's Day is
every man's birthday.”
English critic, poet and essayist, Charles Lamb (1775-1834)
gave this reason to celebrate the passage of the old year.
“It wouldn't be New
Year's if I didn't have regrets.”
Former pro football player William Thomas is supposed to
have made that glum seasonal observation.
"We spend January
1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be
done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to
walk through the rooms of our lives... not looking for flaws, but for
potential."
Pulitzer Prize winning
journalist and columnist Ellen Goodman suggested this.
"Time has no
divisions to mark its passage; there is never a thunder-storm or blare of
trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new
century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols."
Nobel laureate Thomas
Mann (1875-1955) noted this phenomenon.
“New Year's Eve is
like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no
breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another
twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this
evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights.”
Collector and re-teller of children’s stories and fairy
tales, Hamilton Wright Mabie, (1846–1916) said this.
“Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning,
but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.”
Journalist and appreciative author about the outdoors, Hal
Borland (1900-1978) said that.
“Ring out the old,
ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells,
across the snow:
The year is going, let
him go;
Ring out the false,
ring in the true.”
That’s courtesy of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, (1809–1892) in 1850.
“The new year begins
in a snow-storm of white vows.”
Speaking of snow at about the same time as Tennyson, social
reformer, author and editor, George William Curtis (1824-1892) held this view.
“We will open the
book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The
book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day.”
Poet and pacifist Edith Lovejoy Pierce (1904-1983) added
that thought to one of her blank pages.
“Be at War with your
Vices,
at Peace with your
Neighbours,
and let every New-Year
find you a better Man.”
This was the counsel in Benjamin Franklin's December 1755 Poor Richard's Almanac.
For last year's words
belong to last year's language
And next year's words
await another voice.
And to make an end is
to make a beginning.
Poet T.S. Eliot, (1888-1965) made that clear in "Little Gidding,” the fourth and final poem of his Four Quartets.
Wishing you a peaceful finish to
2013 and thoughtful beginning to 2014.
Geoff Steck
Chief Catalyst
Alexander Publishing & Marketing
8 Depot Square
Englewood, NJ 07631
201-569-5373
P.S. As I noted here last year about this time (TGIM#389) on New Year’s Eve I’m not so much a fan of Auld Lang Syne as I am of the Pete Seeger’s music and 1959
adaptation of the words from Ecclesiastes.
Here’s one version of the lyrics.
TO EVERYTHING THERE IS A SEASON
(TURN, TURN, TURN)
Chorus:
To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose under heaven.
A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep.
A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones
A time to gather stones together.
A time of war, a time of peace
A time of love, a time of hate
A time you may embrace
A time to refrain from embracing.
A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sew
A time of love, a time of hate
A time of peace
… I swear it's not too late.
And one of my favorite versions of Pete singing, HERE.
Pete Seeger
