Fitness instructor carves his girlfriend’s name into the Colosseum.
Mongol prince studying the Quran, miniature from a fourteenth-century edition of Rashid al-Din’s Compendium of Chronicles. Universal History Archive / UIG / Bridgeman Images.
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Miscellany
The title track of Van Morrison’s 1990 album Enlightenment opens with the lyrics “chop that wood, carry water,” a reference to the popular Zen Buddhist dictum that before enlightenment, one must chop wood and carry water, and that after enlightenment, one must chop wood and carry water. The origin is a verse by the late eighth-century Chinese poet Layman Pang, who declared that his “supernatural power and marvelous activity” was “drawing water and carrying firewood.”
If you are truly serious about preparing your child for the future, don’t teach him to subtract—teach him to deduct.
—Fran Lebowitz, 1981Lapham’sDaily
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