The Tragic Optimist

dedicated to fostering awareness, inspiration, and support for creative expression, worldwide literacy efforts, human rights, and freedom of speech

[thetragicoptimist]

Can Reading Make You Happier?

After the First World War, traumatized soldiers were often prescribed a course of reading.

[bookpatrol]

Book Love from PBS via the Great American Read

On display at the Penrose Library, Whitman College

[thetragicoptimist]

[thetragicoptimist]

Leave the door open for the unknown, the door into the dark. That’s where the most important things come from, where you yourself came from, and where you will go. Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost

[thetragicoptimist]

‘Thirteen Ways of Looking,’ by Colum McCann

The Wallace Stevens poem from which it takes its title helps structure the novella anchoring Colum McCann’s book of short fiction.

Colum McCann has an old-school belief in the capabilities of literature. Even as au courant novelists all around him grow skeptical of the artifices of character and plot, and embrace the self as the fiction writer’s only truly accessible subject, McCann’s work continues to assert that nothing human is alien to him, that the empathetic imagination can and should go where it pleases. 

[thetragicoptimist]

Graduation Season - Are you ready? Note: Image via Flicker, Univ. of Denver

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And all your future lies beneath your hat.

John Oldham, 17th century poet (via pointfrance) http://rack.0.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDE0LzA1LzEzL2Q5L2dyYWRjYXAuZjQ2MjIuanBnCnAJdGh1bWIJOTUweDUzNCMKZQlqcGc/aab09df0/8b1/gradcap.jpg

[thetragicoptimist]

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You cannot help but learn more as you take the world into your hands. Take it up reverently, for it is an old piece of clay, with millions of thumbprints on it.

John Updike (via teabooksandcoffee)

[mtvstyle]

when your graduation cap is on point

[bugs-inamber]

A great fire burns within me, but no one stops to warm themselves at it, and passers-by only see a wisp of smoke.

Vincent Van Gogh (via bugs-inamber)

[huffpost]

Van Gogh Documentary To Be First Fully Painted Feature Film Ever Made

The film will incorporate over 120 of van Gogh’s paintings, animated and brought to life.

[lovelustquotes]

Normality is a paved road; it’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow.

Vincent van gogh (via lovelustquotes)

[philamuseum]

Today we wish a happy birthday to Vincent van Gogh, the incomparable post-Impressionist whose evocative and vivid works are among the most beloved in the world.

“Sunflowers,”  1888–9, by Vincent van Gogh

[thetragicoptimist]

Celebrate National Poetry Month! This video was created via the Community Word Project. "Community-Word Project is a New York City based 501(c)(3) arts-in-education organization that inspires children in underserved communities to read, interpret and respond to their world and to become active citizens through collaborative arts residencies and teacher training programs." To learn more, visit http://communitywordproject.org

[queenslibrary]

Today for ‪‎Women’s History Month‬ we honor classic children’s author Beatrix Potter with a collection of her stories! 

[darksilenceinsuburbia]

Alexander Korzer-Robinson.

Brilliantly created by UK-based artist Alexander Korzer-Robinson, these beautiful collages of book carvings from old encyclopedias and rare books bring us into another world. All the images in the final artwork are from the original pages of the book. He goes through page by page to look for images and does not add in anything in. He turns books from being a tool to learn from the world into a means to gains insight about oneself. (by Samantha Dalrymple)