Hemingway, Part 2

Posted on February 23, 2010 by Leslie Sigal Javorek | Leave a comment

Posted by: Leslie Sigal Javorek • Date: Tues. Feb. 23, 2010 3:50 am

It is late and I am tired and, more importantly I think I’m keeping me Hubby up as he sleeps beside me and my trusty laptop… So I’m going to make tonight’s post a quick one by sharing with you some of my most favorite quotes out of the mouth (or typewriter) of Ernest Hemingway. Some of these are simply clever but the rest are the kind that make you want to reflect on them for a while and as you turn them around in your thoughts, different facets jump out at you and you realize that, Ernie, was not as “simple” as he claimed to be…

“Man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”
– Ernest Hemingway, 1899-1961, American Author & Journalist, from his novel “The Old Man and the Sea” (1952)

“You make your own luck, Gig. You know what makes a good loser? Practice.”
– Ernest Hemingway, 1899-1961, Speaking to his son Gregory, as quoted in Papa, a Personal Memoir (1976) Gregory H. Hemingway

“War is no longer made by simply analysed economic forces if it ever was. War is made or planned now by individual men, demagogues and dictators who play on the patriotism of their people to mislead them into a belief in the great fallacy of war when all their vaunted reforms have failed to satisfy the people they misruled. “
– Ernest Hemingway, 1899-1961, “Notes on the Next War: A Serious Topical Letter” first published in Esquire (September 1935)

“Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be. But what will happen in all the other days that ever come can depend on what you do today.”
– Ernest Hemingway, 1899-1961, “For Whom the Bell Tolls” (1940)

“For a true writer each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.”
– Ernest Hemingway, 1899-1961, Nobel Prize Speech Delivered from Hemingway’s notes by US Ambassador John C. Cabot (1954) Full Text

“The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof, shit detector. This is the writer’s radar and all great writers have had it.”
– Ernest Hemingway, 1899-1961, from an interview of Ernest by George Plimpton in the Paris Review Issue 18 (Spring 1958); later published in Writers at Work, Second Series (1963)

(Courage is) “Grace under pressure”
– Ernest Hemingway, 1899-1961, Hemingway’s definition of “guts” as recounted by Dorothy Parker in the New Yorker (30 November 1929)

“There are some things which cannot be learned quickly, and time, which is all we have, must be paid heavily for their acquiring. They are the very simplest things and because it takes a man’s life to know them the little new that each man gets from life is very costly and the only heritage he has to leave.”
– Ernest Hemingway, 1899-1961, “Death in the Afternoon” (1932)

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The following images are either full or reduced size previews. Simply right-click (or control-click) on the preview to save the image(s) of your choice to your desktop. (Unless otherwise noted, downloads are 512px X 512px in .png format). Create Commons license applies (see sidebar for details)

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OH BOY! A New Multi-Part Icon/Clip-Art Series – ‘Hemingway’

Posted on February 22, 2010 by Leslie Sigal Javorek | Leave a comment

Posted by: Leslie Sigal Javorek • Date: Mon. Feb. 22, 2010 5:59 am

~~Tonight~~ This morning! I am introducing the first installment of a multi-part series of images (suitable for either icons or clip art) entitled “Hemingway”. For those of you who’ve viewed my Scrapblogs you are probably familiar with my Hemingway series originally created 3 or 4 years ago. This new series combines several brand new images along with revised versions of the old series. All images from this new series are 512x512px .png images in order to make them accessible for everyone whereas I had only released the old set as 128×128 px .icns.

IconDoIt’s Hemingway Series of images celebrates a tiny slice of the passions & achievements of Ernest Hemingway. More than half a century after his death, the appeal of this enigmatic “Man’s Man” continues to grow and remain relevant due to the eloquence of Hemingway’s prose and universality of his characters thrust into a rapidly changing world where conventional values, relationships and expectations no longer have meaning and tomorrow is the ultimate unknown, all woven together with exotic locations and varied adventures and all with the core theme man as an individual and the compulsion to seek challenges to triumph over himself and his environment. From the point of view of characters dealing with the reality of living in the eye of the storm, life is at once thrilling, horrifying, compelling, alienating, inspiring, depressing, life-affirming, destructive, ancient, modern and seductive.

Free Icons of the Day

The following images are either full or reduced size previews. Simply right-click (or control-click) on the preview to save the image(s) of your choice to your desktop. (Unless otherwise noted, downloads are 512px X 512px in .png format). Create Commons license applies (see sidebar for details)

IconDoIt’s Homage to Picasso’s Homage to Cervantes

Posted on February 17, 2010 by Leslie Sigal Javorek | 9 Comments

Posted by: Leslie Sigal Javorek • Date: Wed. Feb. 17, 2010 9:08 pm

I’ve found that serendipity abounds when I keep my mind open and seek knowledge whether for knowledge’s sake or for specific purposes. My experiences today are an excellent example. I began by working on an idea I had for a new desktop wallpaper that paid tribute to my “hero”, Don Quixote and one of my favorite painter’s, Pablo Picasso. I’m pretty pleased with the result and wanted to share it but because I had incorporated the footprint of Picasso’s own famous tribute to Quixote, I thought I had better check out whether or not I would be guilty of some infringement. Enter Part II of my day, when I took a break before embarking on researching this legal question by catching up on some of my e-mail and unread blog subscriptions…

Bruce Carlton posted on his blog, Legal Blog Watch, an article that caught my interest as being particularly apropos, titled : ‘Copyright Abolitionists’ Fight for Freedom-Based Distribution of Artistic Work. After reading the article, I followed two of the links within it, first to another blog, Against Monopoly, and then to QuestionCopyright.org. The central theme of these sites is to educate people about the fallacies of the benefits of copyrights, the resultant harm caused by copyrights, and a call to arms, so to speak, to help fight against expanding of the existing copyright laws which is being actively considered both by US Congress and the Supreme Court as well as by many other countries around the world at this very moment. While I am a die-heart capitalist, I have also always been a firm believer in the open exchange of information, culture and inspiration, but have never been quite sure how to explain why those two positions were not in contradiction with each other. Nina Paley, artist-in-residence at QuestionCopyright.org is far more articulate than I, in both word and picture, and has produced an award-winning, animated short documentary that shows in a delightfully entertaining and informing manner, just how copyrights actually serve more to suppress creativity than protect economic interests. Among the many points makes in this one minute animation titled “All Things Are Derivative”, Ms. Paley also illustrates the difference between “plagerism” and “derivatives”.

All Things Are Derivative ……

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Interesting. But even more interesting was how my research concerning Don Quixote and Pablo Picasso’s painting ended up coming full circle to the very points made by Ms. Paley and the organization Question Copyright. Recently voted The Greatest Book of All Time by the Nobel Institute, Cervantes book, Don Quixote, Part I, was first licensed for publication in 1604, released to the public in 1605, and within six months, several derivative (“pirated’) editions were already in the works. In the intervening years, the great novel has spawned an astounding number of further “adaptations” (another term for derivatives) not only in literature but also in music, film, dance, art, and even social organizations. It is impossible to deny the vital influence that Cervantes book had on Western Culture and how culturally impoverished we would likely be today if the creative heirs to Cervantes imagination had been denied the right to build upon his works with their own imaginations and sweat. What adds to the greatness of these various derivatives though is that not one of them claimed to have been the innovator of the characters or plots their own work derived from, but thoroughly acknowledged Cervantes as the original source and genius, and that their subsequent works were in homage to the master.

It is in this same spirit that I offer my own creative works, where all I seek from those of you who may choose to make derivative works, is that you publicly acknowledge the source (‘attribution’), and send me a link so that I, too, can marvel at what clever ways you have chosen to adapt my work and allowed it to grow and ferment into something bigger and better.

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The following image is a reduced size preview of a 1920 x 1200px Desktop Wallpaper. Simply right-click (or control-click) on the preview to save the it to your desktop. If your monitor is set to a different resolution, send me a note via a comment below with the size required and I’ll post it for you. As always, my Create Commons license applies (see sidebar for details)