https://vegasharmon.com/tags/old-nsa-commonplaces/ Recent content in Old-Nsa-Commonplaces on Vegas Harmon Hugo en Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/a-right-but-not-a-reason-to-be-proud/ Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/a-right-but-not-a-reason-to-be-proud/ What went unsaid, but clearly implied, was that they had a right but not a reason to be proud of me. https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/all-dry-all-withered-all-spent/ Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/all-dry-all-withered-all-spent/ It was all dry: all withered: all spent. https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/and-giovanni-fell/ Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/and-giovanni-fell/ And Giovanni fell—back into the room, the streets, the world, into the presence and the shadow of death. https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/and-we-became-friends/ Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/and-we-became-friends/ He made the emperor laugh and the horse couldn’t better him, so he stayed. And I stayed. And we became friends. https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/bad-as-this-article-was/ Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/bad-as-this-article-was/ Bad as this article was, and time has proved it to be utter nonsense, the second article he wrote was probably even worse, and why I printed it I don’t recall. https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/boom-and-bust-tamed/ Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/boom-and-bust-tamed/ Now that the sad cycle of boom and bust has been tamed, now that many Americans have the means as well as the wish to diffuse prosperity and amenities throughout the community, the challenges to public policy have taken a new turn. https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/eyes-puffed-and-swimming/ Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/eyes-puffed-and-swimming/ His glasses are thick, magnifying, and his eyes, puffed and swimming, seem not to miss a thing. https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/i-might-easily-have-failed/ Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/i-might-easily-have-failed/ I feel—and the anxiety is still vivid to me—that I might easily have failed before I began. https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/into-this-grey-lake-plopped-the-thought/ Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/into-this-grey-lake-plopped-the-thought/ Into this grey lake plopped the thought, I know that man, don’t I? https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/life-as-a-ceaseless-contest/ Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/life-as-a-ceaseless-contest/ Life he saw as a ceaseless and courageous contest. https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/light-through-the-stained-glass/ Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/light-through-the-stained-glass/ Light fell through the colors of the stained glass beyond the altar. Through the windows ajar on the side aisle came the sweetness of blossom, of bruised grass, of river mud. https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/miami-beach-was-born/ Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/miami-beach-was-born/ They snipped the ribbon in 1915, they popped the cork, Miami Beach was born. https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/no-golden-rules/ Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/no-golden-rules/ The golden rule is that there are no golden rules. https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/not-incapable-of-being-amused/ Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/not-incapable-of-being-amused/ In his youth, however, though too imbecile for study or for business, he was not incapable of being amused. https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/ridicule-of-the-great-applause-of-the-learned/ Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/ridicule-of-the-great-applause-of-the-learned/ Garish in her dress, eccentric in her habits, chaste in her conduct, coarse in her speech, she succeeded in her lifetime in drawing upon herself the ridicule of the great and the applause of the learned. https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/some-rise-by-sin/ Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/some-rise-by-sin/ Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall. https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/streets-shuttled-past/ Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/streets-shuttled-past/ They were in town now. Streets, houses, buildings shuttled past. https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/teach-me-how-to-repent/ Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/teach-me-how-to-repent/ Teach me how to repent; for that’s as good As if thou hadst sealed my pardon, with thy blood. https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/the-five-foot-2-inch-dynamo/ Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/the-five-foot-2-inch-dynamo/ The five-foot 2-inch dynamo has piloted her career with dazzling audacity. https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/the-gardener-s-deal-with-nature/ Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/the-gardener-s-deal-with-nature/ When we choose to be the gardener, we make a deal with nature: we will abide by certain rules in growing plants, and the plants will accede to our shaping them somewhat to our needs and pleasures. We will supply water, loamy soil, a modicum of nutrients, and moderate temperature, and the impatiens will bloom brightly from May to October. https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/the-inner-door-beside-the-stone/ Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/the-inner-door-beside-the-stone/ The inner door, which led to the passage, which in turn led to the storm door, was beside the stone. https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/the-last-screw-came-out/ Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/the-last-screw-came-out/ The last screw came out, the whole lock case slid down, freeing the bolt. https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/the-overture-to-carmen/ Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/the-overture-to-carmen/ I still count the little preamble that begins as the houselights go down and the footlights glow and goes on to accompany the slow rise of the curtain on the opening scene of Carmen as the most cunningly contrived passage of descriptive music I have ever heard. https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/thin-and-clear-air/ Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/thin-and-clear-air/ The air was thin and clear, stringent with wood smoke and the tang of fallen apples, sharp with the hint of early frost. https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/time-weighs-most-on-those-who-have-it-least/ Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/time-weighs-most-on-those-who-have-it-least/ Strange thing, time. It weighs most on those who have it least. https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/to-be-in-a-passion/ Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/to-be-in-a-passion/ To be in a Passion you Good may do But no Good if a Passion is in you. https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/virginia-s-pain-at-criticism/ Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/virginia-s-pain-at-criticism/ And just as the mother feels acutely the slightest criticism of her child, so any criticism of her book even by the most negligible nitwit gave Virginia acute pains. https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/we-shall-ask-for-none/ Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/we-shall-ask-for-none/ But be the ordeal sharp or long or both, we shall seek no terms, we shall tolerate no parley; we may show mercy—we shall ask for none. https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/who-dotes-yet-doubts/ Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/who-dotes-yet-doubts/ But O, what damned minutes tells he o’er Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves. https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/who-were-they-all/ Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/who-were-they-all/ The room was very full and who were they all?