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30 Dec 00 - 07:12 AM (#365552) Subject: help please - Desiderata From: RoyH (Burl) I need the words and any known background on 'Desiderata', a poem much in evidence in the '70's. Can any 'Catter oblige please? |
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30 Dec 00 - 07:22 AM (#365554) Subject: RE: help please - Desiderata From: Mary in Kentucky D E S I D E R A T A Go placidly amid the noise and haste, And remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly & clearly; and listen to others, even the dull & ignorant; they too have their story. Avoid loud & aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain & bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing future of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity & disenchantment it is perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue & loneliness. Beyond wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees & the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labours & aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery & broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
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30 Dec 00 - 07:24 AM (#365557) Subject: RE: help please - Desiderata From: Zebedee You can find the poem here Ed |
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30 Dec 00 - 10:54 AM (#365651) Subject: RE: help please - Desiderata From: Midchuck DETERIORATA Go placidly amid the noise and waste, and remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof. Avoid quiet and passive persons, unless you are in need of sleep. Rotate your tires. Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself, and heed well their advice, even though they be turkeys. Know what to kiss, and when. Consider that two wrongs never make a right, but that three do. Wherever possible, put people on hold. Be comforted, that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment, and despite the changing fortunes of time, there is always a big future in computer maintenance. Remember the Pueblo. Strive at all times to bend, fold, spindle, and mutilate. Know yourself. If you need help, call the F.B.I. Exercise caution in your daily affairs, especially with those persons closest to you; that lemon on your left, for instance. Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most souls will scarcely get your feet wet. Fall not in love therefore; it will stick to your face. Gracefully surrender the things of youth; birds, clean air, tuna, Taiwan. And let not the sand of time get into your lunch. Hire people with hooks. For a good time, call 606-4311. Ask for Ken. Take heart in the deepening gloom that your dog is finally getting enough cheese. And reflect that whatever misfortune may be your lot, it could only be worse in Milwaukee. You are a fluke of the universe. You have no right to be here. And whether you can hear it or not, the universe is laughing behind your back. Therefore, make peace with your god, whatever you conceive him to be -- hairy thunderer or cosmic muffin. With all its hopes, dreams, promises, and urban renewal, the world continues to deteriorate. Give up. (From National Lampoon - performed on National Lampoon Radio Dinner album - written by Tony Hendra, IIRC) Peter. |
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30 Dec 00 - 03:01 PM (#365767) Subject: RE: help please - Desiderata From: Sourdough You are going to think this is another Harvard Lampoon style entry but it is for real: Desiderata was written in 1927 by a Terra Haute lawyer named Max Ehrman and was originally published in a book, "Poems of Max Ehrman". That is is atrributed to something found in St. Paul's Church in Baltimore dated late seventeenth century isn't a hoax, but a misunderstanding. If you want to read the details, you can find them at the Wooden Spoon Urban LEgends website. You will have to cut and past this URL unless a JC will perform a miracle and turn my black and white URL into a Blue Clicker. Here, ready for transformation, as well as for the edification of anyone who is interested is the URL in question: This takes you to the index page. Go to their search engine and type in Desiderata (but you knew how to do that already, didn't you?) After you have read about Desiderata, take some time to explore the website, it is a gem. Sourdough In all fairness, I think you will have to admit that Max Ehrman must have been one hell of a guy. |
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30 Dec 00 - 05:27 PM (#365827) Subject: RE: help please - Desiderata From: Bernard Blue Clicky! |
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30 Dec 00 - 05:42 PM (#365833) Subject: RE: help please - Desiderata From: RoyH (Burl) Friends - thank you for all that. I have what I need now. I remembered some of it but wanted to write it out for my grandchildren at New Year. Now I can do that. I'll show them the lampoons later. Thanks again, Burl. |
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30 Dec 00 - 08:21 PM (#365927) Subject: RE: help please - Desiderata From: catspaw49 Sourdough, thanks for the info and the site. And Midchuck, I had one of the Lamoon's calligraphy style posters for years...always loved it!!! Spaw |
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01 Jan 01 - 08:15 PM (#366910) Subject: RE: help please - Desiderata From: Gypsy I love this piece. First saw it when the typewriter guy came to fix my IBM...when he was doing the last check for soundness, this is what he left in the beast. Was really nice to find. |
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01 Jan 01 - 11:58 PM (#366958) Subject: RE: help please - Desiderata From: Murray MacLeod Midchuck, that is priceless. I always thought the original erred on the pretentious side of pretentious. Which group sang it and had a hit with it in the 70's ? Murray |
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02 Jan 01 - 01:38 AM (#366979) Subject: RE: help please - Desiderata From: Rick Fielding It was recorded by TV host Les Crane, Murray. What the hell ever happened to HIM? No. Forget that. Who cares? Rick |
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03 Jan 01 - 12:37 AM (#367546) Subject: RE: help please - Desiderata From: rabbitrunning Oh, man, now I'm desperately trying to remember the Klingon version! Help, anyone? Anyone?
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03 Jan 01 - 08:10 AM (#367688) Subject: RE: help please - Desiderata From: McGrath of Harlow My magic Webferret came up with this in a few seconds. (For more about it, visit this Klingon website: )
Words to live by -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted by Kadh, IKV Disintegrata on Dec 17, 1999 at 07:53:40:
Go nastily amid the peace and tranquility, and remember what satisfaction there may be in genocide. As far as possible, without surrender, move into other people's space.
Lie often and loudly: and listen to the lies of others, even the slow and incompetent - examples can be made of them later. Seek out meek and inoffensive persons: they are annoying: but fun to kill.
Do not bother comparing yourself to others: those greater than you will eventually be eliminated, and those lesser than you are dead already. Fart in airlocks. Assassinate your superior as quickly as possible: your own career, however exalted, is not worth a plugged millo if one of your junior officers gets it over your dead body.
Exercise caution if one of your course changes suddenly produces a sensor ghost: for the Galaxy is full of Federation vessels. But let this not blind you to the happier side of things: many Starship captains are swaggering, tin-plated dictators with delusions of godhood, and everywhere life is full of incompetence.
Advance yourself. Especially do not feign meanness, neither be cynical about hate: you are not likely to run out of either. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the joys of defenestration and evisceration for more mature pleasures.
Nurture a deep-seated suspicion of small furry creatures that purr: you never can tell. File your teeth regularly. Discipline is important: practice holding it between planetfalls. You are a scourge of the universe, no less than your average interstellar plague or black hole: you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the Universe is going to pieces in a most laudable manner.
Therefore do your utmost to annoy the Destroyer; however you may conceive of Him, Big Bang, or Entropy, Death: and whatever your plans of conquest, as you wade through the morass of peace with fire and sword, annoy your soul. With all its truth, high resolve, and courage, the world still has its ugly spots. Be thoughtless. Strive to be miserable. *found scratched on the energy barrier around the galaxy, stardate 2832.4
(A lot of this sounds more Ferengi than true Klingon. What an unpleasant combination that would be. Though I think there probably are a few of them around...)
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03 Jan 01 - 08:13 AM (#367689) Subject: RE: help please - Desiderata From: McGrath of Harlow No, here is the Klingon website I meant to direct you to. |
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04 Dec 11 - 02:02 PM (#3268385) Subject: RE: Origins: Desiderata From: John MacKenzie Spam |
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04 Dec 11 - 05:46 PM (#3268487) Subject: RE: Origins: Desiderata From: Q (Frank Staplin) OK, let's have the Spam version. |
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05 Dec 11 - 12:11 PM (#3268789) Subject: RE: Origins: Desiderata From: autolycus Meanwhile, here's the origin of the misattribution. How it came to be regarded as the wisdom of the ages, and how Old St. Paul's figured in its own troubles, is a tale that even it's true author might appreciate. The church began getting calls about "Desiderata," Mr. Cook and Haller recall, in the early 1960s. The poem had found a foothold in California, where San Francisco's "flower children" embraced it delightedly as a cnturies-old affirmation of their philosophy of love and peace. And from there it spread out, as underground printers, thinking they were dealing with a work in the public domain, started cranking out inexpensive posters. Momentum picked up even more in the mid '60s. After Adlai E. Stevenson died in 1963, a guest in his home found a copy of "Desiderata" near his bedside, with notations indicating he had been planning to use it on his christmas cards. The publicity that followed spread the poem's fame - and Old St. Paul's - from basement to board rooms. But the questions began cropping up. Some of the words in the poem, literary authors pointed out, were not even in use at the time it was supposedly written. And Old St. Paul's kept denying any claim to it. Gradually, a Baltimore connection emerged. The rector at Old St. Paul's in the late 1950s, it turned out, had been fond of essays and poems of an inspirationally nature. It was often his practice, says the Rev. Frederick Ward Kates, now retired and living in upstate New York, to mimeograph the writings he liked in booklet form and place them in pews around the church. During lent one year, Mr. Kates recalled in a telephone interview, he came across "Desiderata" ("probably," he says, "in a barber shop reading a magazine") and decided to use it on the front page of one of his booklets. And as was also his practice, he made sure that the booklet carried the letterhead "Old St. Paul's church, A.D. 1692" the year of the church's founding. Someone who attended Lenten services, Mr. Kates theorizes, picked up the booklet, took a liking to "Desiderata", and passed it along to a friend, and so on. And someone along the way who reprinted it obviously transposed the church's letterhead into the misleading credit line that has been plaguing Old St. Paül's ever since. Whoever picked it up also omitted the name of the author, a relatively obscure Indiana poet by the name of Max Ehrmann. from an article in Washington Post in 1977 - see Wiki entry on Ehrmann. |
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06 Dec 11 - 07:25 AM (#3269208) Subject: RE: Origins: Desiderata From: GUEST,Baz Bowdidge Interesting autolycus - Thanks Baz |
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06 Dec 11 - 02:59 PM (#3269429) Subject: RE: Origins: Desiderata From: Peter the Squeezer This version is from the pen of the man who ought to be Poet Laureate! Detritus - by Les Barker Go placidly amid the noise and haste And remember what peace there may be in silence Do not walk behind me for I may not lead Do not walk in front for I may not follow Go over there somewhere Speak your truth quietly and clearly Be open-minded, but do not lean forward or your brain may fall out Know that there will be good days and there will be bad days And this is one of them Always dismantle and clean the dog before going to bed But avoid the use of spot remover, you may never see him again You are a child of the universe It is a small world unless you have to paint it Do not wish for everything unless you have a really big cupboard Avoid loud and aggressive persons Sleep well If you cannot sleep well, practice more often Borrow from pessimists, they don't expect it back Remember if you give a man a fish he will eat for a day Teach him to fish and he will sit in a boat and drink himself stupid It is always darkest before the dawn That is the time to steal your neighbours newspaper Be gentle with yourself Bear in mind that depression is anger without enthusiasm And good health merely the slowest way to die Never argue with a fool for he is doing the same Know that if at first you don't succeed sky-diving's not a good idea And that timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance Always remember that all is not lost Though I haven't seen it for some time Be yourself If you cannot become wiser try to be older Never stand between the dog and the lamppost And never hit a man with glasses Always use something bigger and heavier And remember that some people are only alive because it's illegal to kill them A closed mouth gathers no feet Nature abhors a vacuum cleaner Be cheerful Strive to be happy And remember that your sole purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others Go far And start as soon as possible |
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06 Dec 11 - 03:51 PM (#3269451) Subject: RE: Origins: Desiderata From: fat B****rd i FIRST SAW IT ONTHE BACK OF A kiNG cRIMSON lp |