photographed in Decatur, Illinois on October 7, 2009

What to do
1. Choose a magazine picture.
2. Cut an important part of the picture such as the head of a dog, a baby’s foot, or a glass of milk. Glue it to the base of the paper or cardboard.
3. Choose another unrelated magazine picture and add a part of that picture to the first part. The idea is to make a silly picture combining unrelated parts such as the head of a dog, the body of a boy, two feet made of bananas, and so on.
4. When a substantially silly picture is complete, dry for an hour or so.

More to do
More art: Glue a part from a magazine picture on a piece of paper. Give the artist the challenge of adding other parts to the pre-glued piece.

Excerpted from ‘Mixed-up Magazine’ by Mary Ann Kohl. Originally appearing in The Giant Encyclopedia of Art & Craft Activities for Children 3 to 6, edited by Kathy Charner. Published by Grypon House, Beltsville, Maryland, 2000.

photographed on Santa Catalina Island, California on June 13, 2009

The physical domain contains a wide range of limitations, but generally relates to respiratory, metabolic, and musculoskeletal body functions associated with movement. The [2008 American Community Survey] focuses on ambulatory difficulties in question 17b of the 2008 questionnaire, which asked respondents aged 5 years and older, “Does this person have serious difficulty walking or climbing stairs?” In 2008, about 19.2 million people or 6.9 percent of the civilian noninstitutionalized population 5 years and older had an ambulatory difficulty …

For estimates of ambulatory difficulty, the [2008 Survey of Income and Program Participation] provides degrees of severity against which the ACS measure can be portrayed. Whereas the ACS measure asked about serious difficulty walking or climbing stairs, the SIPP measure asks about difficulty with each activity and follows up with questions about whether the respondent can perform the activity at all. The resulting measures show two levels of difficulty walking or climbing stairs. As shown in Figure 8, the ACS ambulatory difficulty measure falls in between the two SIPP measures, implying that it may capture difficulty that is more severe than the basic SIPP measure of difficulty walking or climbing stairs, but less severe than the measure of being unable to perform at least one of the activities.

Excerpted from Review of Changes to the Measurement of Disability in the 2008 American Community Survey by Matthew W. Brault. Published by the U.S. Census Bureau, September 22, 2009.

photographed in Stillwater, Oklahoma on October 12, 2009

Where the grass is yellow-tangled / O’er a long-forgotten mound / Still a gray stone, lichen-hoary, / Lifts its record from the ground.

Now have passed three generations / Since the river quenched the life / Of the two, whose friends so crudely / Carved the stone with rustic knife.

Druid trees with gray moss bearded / Whisper o’er the mounded grass / Wierdly [sic] meet with incantations / Generations as they pass.

The full text of ‘River Hopewell’ by William Patrick MacKenzie as appearing in Voices and Undertones in Song and Poem. Published by Equity Publishing Co., New York, 1889.

photographed in Martin, Tennessee on October 13, 2009

Section II: The Interview. 3. Definition: a. The Army interview is a specialized pattern of verbal communication initiated for a specific purpose. This takes the interview out of the category of casual conversation or discussion for its own sake. Interviews normally are scheduled at an appropriate time and place to be free from distractions or disturbing factors. The interviewer is qualified and authorized to conduct the interview. He has a predetermined purpose that will affect the interviewee. The interviewer must create and maintain an atmosphere in which the respondent feels that he is understood and in which he is safe to communicate without fear of being judged or criticized. On the other hand, the respondent must be able and willing to assist in the accomplishment of the purpose.

b. The most common interview method used by the Army is the standardized or “patterned” interview because it is well adapted to recurring situations. Standardized interviews are used for evaluation of officer candidates, interviewing for assignment to special jobs, or interviewing for selection of leaders. The standardized interview involves the use of forms, such as an interview blank for recording impressions and a rating sheet when evaluation of the interviewee is required. Interviewers may be supplied a manual which describes the nature and purpose of the forms to be used and may outline, in some detail, the order of procedures to be followed. Rating sheets serve as guides to direct attention to important factors, insure that significant details are not neglected, and provide for systematic reporting. In addition to the specific directions supplied by the manual, the techniques of good interviewing as outlined in this pamphlet apply. Personnel assigned to conduct standardized interviews should be thoroughly familiar with the selection requirements of the area for which individuals are being considered as well as in the techniques of interviewing. Standardized interviews may be conducted by a board operating in formal session.

Excerpted from Department of the Army Pamphlet 611–1: ‘Personnel Selection and Classification: The Army Interview.’ Original publication from August 31, 1965. Unclassified.

photographed near New Richland, Minnesota on February 23, 2009

In the fall when the days became crisp and gray, and the long Minnesota winter shut down like the white lid of a box, Dexter’s skis moved over the snow that hid the fairways of the golf course. At these times the country gave him a feeling of profound melancholy–it offended him that the links should lie in enforced fallowness, haunted by ragged sparrows for the long season. It was dreary, too, that on the tees where the gay colors fluttered in summer there were now only the desolate sand-boxes knee-deep in crusted ice. When he crossed the hills the wind blew cold as misery, and if the sun was out he tramped with his eyes squinted up against the hard dimensionless glare.

In April the winter ceased abruptly. The snow ran down into Black Bear Lake scarcely tarrying for the early golfers to brave the season with red and black balls. Without elation, without an interval of moist glory, the cold was gone.

Dexter knew that there was something dismal about this Northern spring, just as he knew there was something gorgeous about the fall. Fall made him clinch his hands and tremble and repeat idiotic sentences to himself, and make brisk abrupt gestures of command to imaginary audiences and armies. October filled him with hope which November raised to a sort of ecstatic triumph, and in this mood the fleeting brilliant impressions of the summer at Sherry Island were ready grist to his mill.

Excerpted from ‘Winter Dreams’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Published in the anthology All the Sad Young Men by Cambridge University Press, 2007.

photographed in Cincinnati, Ohio on September 11, 2009

The admiration of these ladies for strangers naturally provokes the disgust and jealousy of the Peruvian gentlemen; while, strange to say, it doest not excite them to emulation of their attractions and virtues. So long as they can lounge in idleness and smoke their cigars, there seems to them nothing in the world really worth striving for …

The women of the higher classes during their brief reign as beauties, live idle, luxurious lives; dividing their days between lounging in their hammocks, smoking cigars, eating sweetmeats and confectionery, toying with their guitars, admiring their jewels or their beautiful feet, and turning over the leaves of handsomely illustrated books. After dinner, they receive visitors, sit on the latticed portico of the upper story of their dwellings, and watch and exchange glances with the passers-by, don the soya y manto and sally forth to walk, or pay visits, or to attend a theatre or a bull-fight. Then they attend church with great regularity and great frequency.

Excerpted from ‘The Women of South America—The Western Coast,’ by Mrs. E.B. Duffey. Appearing in Arthur’s Illustrated Home Magazine, volume XLII, edited by T.S. Arthur. Published by T.S. Arthur & Son, Philadelphia, 1874.

photographed in Quincy, Illinois on September 5, 2009

A German writer has well said, “There are eyes which only need to look up, to touch every chord of a breast choked by the stiff atmosphere of stiff and stagnant society, and to call for tones which might become the accompanying music of a life.” “This gentle transfusion of mind into mind, is the secret of sympathy. It is never understood but ever felt; and where it is allowed to exert its power, it fills and extends intellectual life far beyond the measure of ordinary conception.”

A refined and sensitive person will be conscious of an instinctive shrinking from another, a dislike that cannot be accounted for except that something disagreeable is discovered in the eye. We may strive to overcome this feeling, if there person in question presents an otherwise plausible appearance; but the look will haunt us, and the eye will warn us to distrust such a false outside. We cannot repose confidence in such an one; we know that there is no affinity between us, that we do not belong to the same sphere. Perhaps all are not thus susceptible, indeed it may be only the finer spirits that can look through the windows of the soul into the mystery of the inner life. A woman may school her voice to a musical key; her smile be soft and fascinating, and her manners insinuating and bland; yet a single glance of her eye shall reveal that she is passionate and artful in the extreme.

Excerpted from ‘About Eyes’ by Miss M. A. H. Dodd, appearing in The Ladies’ Repository, volume XXI. Edited by the Rev. Henry Bacon, published by A. Tompkins, Boston, 1853.

photographed in Quincy, Illinois on September 6, 2009

Hamilton Burton had always denied with scorn the existence of blind luck as an element in human greatness or failure. Now if he had leaped head-foremost into an empty swimming pool, at the exact moment when he stood midway of an enterprise which should crown him as omnipotent—or ruin him, perhaps it was a thing beyond coincidence. Yesterday he had aligned colossal forces for today’s conflict—and taken his toll of vengeance. Today he must turn to profit the chaos he had wrought to that end through plans known only to himself—and today he lay with a fractured skull, sleeping the sleep of unconsciousness.

Today every hand in the world of finance with turned against him with the desperation of a struggle for survival—save those of his own lieutenants who were leaderless. All the way down the line from the Department of Justice to the small sufferers of the provinces a slogan of war without quarter sounded against the most hated man in America. That such would be the case he had known yesterday, but he also knew—or thought he did—that his directing hand would still be on the tiller and his uncannily shrewd brain would be puzzling, bewildering and deluding his enemies into unwittingly serving his ends.

Excerpted from Destiny, a novel by Charles Neville Buck. Published by W.J. Watt & Company, New York, 1916.

photographed in a National park in upstate New York on October 16, 2006

Within the last few months there has crept into our literature a little story, so classic in its simplicity, so pure in its style, so clear in its enunciations of a great primal truth, that we are sure it will abide. One reads it only to feel that he must read it again; that he must spend another hour on those glorious hills, must once more feel that keen, frosty wind in his face and taste the joy of being alive. It is the story of Yan, a boy hunter, who was driven forth season after season by a wolfish instinct to take up the trail and be a beast of the chase. “My wits against their wits,” he would cry, “my strength against their strength, and against their speed my gun.” And once while the hunter was thus fretting within him, he heard of a mighty buck that lived in the hills – the Sandhill stag they called him – herd “of his size, his speed, and the crowning glory that he bore on his brow, a marvelous growth like sculptured bronze with gleaming ivory points.” With the first tracking snow, he set out on its trail, glorifying in its strength, for his legs were like iron and his wind like a hound’s. Many a frosty day and bitter night he spent in his search; he learned a hundred secrets of the ponds, the woods, and the hills, but the season passed and the sagacious stag had eluded him.

Excerpted from ‘He Prayeth Well Who Loveth Well,’ a review of The Trail of the Sandhill Stag by Ernest Seton-Thompson. Book published by Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1899. Review published in Public Opinion: A Comprehensive Summary of Press Throughout the World on All Important Current Topics, Volume XXVII. Published by The Public Opinion Company, New York, 1899.

photographed in Clarksville, Tennessee on October 14, 2007

‘You don’t understand me, Harry,’ answered the artist. ‘Of course I am not like him. I know that perfectly well. Indeed, I should be sorry to look like him. You shrug your shoulders? I am telling you the truth. There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the faltering steps of kings. It is better not to be different from one’s fellows. The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live, undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They neither bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it from alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as they are – my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray’s good looks – we shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.’

‘Dorian Gray? Is that his name?’ asked Lord Henry, walking across the studio towards Basil Hallward.

‘Yes, that is his name. I didn’t intend to tell it to you.’

‘But why not?’

‘Oh, I can’t explain. When I like people immensely I never tell their names to anyone. It is like surrendering a part of them. I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvellous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if one only hides it. When I leave town now I never tell my people where I am going. If I did, I would lose all my pleasure. It is a silly habit, I daresay, but somehow it seems to bring a great deal of romance into one’s life. I suppose you think me awfully foolish about it?

Excerpted from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. Published by Random House, multiple years.