ABOUT THE SITE

 

Welcome to THE SITE OF DISCOVERY AND WONDER!

This site asks you to open your eyes and enter the magical world of knowledge.  Try to be a child again with a child’s excitement upon discovering a new color or hearing a fascinating story.  A child has not yet reached the stage of categorizing knowledge, but experiences the world with all its manifold gifts and surprises.  To a child everything is alive and everything is exciting.

So, this blog aims to entertain, astound, and delight.   The site is inspired by the memories of my grandparents, Lillian E. Weiss, and Nathan(Johnny) J. Weiss, my great teachers, who introduced me to the wonderful world of learning by conveying their own enthusiasm and willingness to share their thoughts, and by my parents Murray J. Weiss and Twyla Y. Weiss for encouraging me to explore my surrounding world, from amusement parks to the majestic peaks of the High Sierras.

This blog will have posts from many different fields that reflect my grandmother’s eclectic approach to knowledge, my grandfather’s “simple” and joyul approach to life, my father’s deep love and reverence for nature, and my mother’s insatiable curiosity in the lives of humans with their unique interests and characteristics. My beloved sister, Nancy A. Weiss, has inspired the sections on flowers and music as well as literature and theater.

Some posts are of a practical nature.  Others may have a more abstract feel.  Some of my literary training may peep through now and then, and you might even see some original writing. There is also a section entitled Projects For You in which there are topics and ideas that you can work on.  I ask only that you mention my name, Robert M. Weiss, as the person responsible for the initial concept.  There is also a page, For Your Reading Pleasure, which suggests some intriguing books that you may not have been aware of.  Please take a look at those that interest you and start reading!  My own books are now available for purchase, with details given on My Publications page.

THE SITE OF DISCOVERY AND WONDER assumes that all disciplines are inextricably linked in a network of seamless threads to make up a boundless, yet coherent whole.  For that reason, the Site offers the visitor a glimpse into many different fields and modes of thought.  Several such fields are listed below to help give the reader an idea of the blog’s scope and purpose.

Philosophy:  

Here is Susanne K. Langer’s description of music  from her book on aesthetics, Feeling and Form:  “Yet the realm of experience, so radically changed, is entirely full.  There are forms in it, great and small, forms in motion, sometimes converging to make an impression of complete accomplishment and rest out of their very motions;  there is immense agitation, or vast solidity, and again everything is air;  all this in a universe of pure sound, an audible world, a sonorous beauty taking over the whole of one’s consciousness.“

“Be careful you don’t tie the knot until being certain you have hold of the right end.”–Ludwig Wittgenstein

 

 

Education:

“The process of mastering knowledge in the school years is often torn away from the student’s spiritual life.  It is precisely because the child’s memory is so sharp and tenacious that the pure brook of vivid images, pictures, perceptions, representations flow in it.”—Vasilii Sukhomlinsky.

 

Allan Sherman:

 “God gave us the gift of life.  We don’t need anything more.”

 

   A.  “Take one thousand parts Truth, add one part Lie.  Result:  a Lie.

   B.  Take one-thousandth part Lie, add one part Truth.  Result:  again, a Lie.

   C.  Note that you can make a Lie out of The Truth, but you can’t make The Truth out of a Lie.  Lies are stronger and last longer than The Truth.”–The Rape of the APE.

 

Grooks:  

“A bit beyond perception’s reach I sometimes think I see

that life is two locked boxes each containing the others key.”

 

“Some people live in a world of what will allow them to live their dream. 

They solemnly hold out a half-pint bottle and ask for a pint of cream”-–Piet Hein.

Literature:

 “Chance wears all her locks in front, and once she has passed you by, you cannot recall her.  For the back of her head is bald, and she never turns back.”–Francois Rabelais from Gargantua and Pantagruel.

 

“He told me to look at my hand, for a part of it came from a star that exploded too long ago to imagine…  And this small part of me was then a whisper of the earth…  And he said this small part of me was so small it couldn’t be seen–but it was there from the beginning of the world.”–Tillie from Paul Zindel’s The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds.

 

“You have never been yourself.  What does it matter if you disappear?”--Button Moulder from Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt.

 

“I am Pozzo!  Pozzo!  Does that name mean nothing to you?  I say does that name mean nothing to you?”–from Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.

 

“On you will go, though the weather be foul.

On you will go, though your enemies prowl.

On you will go, though the Haken-Kraks howl.”–from Dr. Seuss’s Oh, the Places You’ll Go!.

                                                     

 

Flowers:

Rogue River:

American Theater:

Musical Theater:

Health:

 “You’re the most precious thing you have.  If you don’t take care of yourself, who will?”–Jack Lalanne.

 “Life is continually challenging us to find the balance between who and how we are, who or how we can be, and who or how our environment is asking us to become.  This dynamic and mysterious interplay of inner reality, potentiality, and outer reality is the true weaver of the fabric of our lives.”–Joel and Michelle Levey from Living In Balance:  A Dynamic Approach For Creating Harmony & Wholeness In A Chaotic World.

“As you cooperate more fully with the creating and healing rhythms of life, you will find more ease, effectiveness and fulfillment.  And, …you will become increasingly aware of your destiny, the life purpose that you were born to fulfill.”–Rod and Brooks Newton from The C.H.I.(Creating, Healing, Integration) Introductory Course:  Mastering Your Life Energy.

Lewis Carroll(Charles Lutwidge Dodgson):  

“Charles Dodgson produced some of the most remarkable photographs of the nineteenth century, earning for himself the garland as the finest photographer of children of the age;  and with the help of photography he came to terms with his true self.”–Morton N. Cohen from Lewis Carroll:  A Biography.

 

“The physical model for Alice wandering through Wonderland is Alice Liddell;  the spiritual and psychological Alice is Charles himself.”–Morton N. Cohen from Lewis Carroll:  A Biography.

 

 

Mathematics: 

“,..I think one thing that’s so appealing to me about mathematics is its real immediacy; that you’re basically on your own with the material, and if there’s something there, you’ve got to find it.”–Robert Brooks from The Magicians of Form.

 

 

“Life does not have an exact solution…It’s a whole conglomeration of imprecise and unpredictable movements.  Sloppy in certain ways.  Sloppy and beautiful.”–John Engelhardt from The Magicians of Form.