The weekly photo challenge on WordPress is INFINITE. I’ve risen to the challenge on A View from the Woods in what I consider a conventional response. True, there are patterns which seemingly repeat forever, and they’re often photogenic. But when it comes to considering the true nature of what is infinite, ah, that takes more considering!
And it occurred to me that here is one source of something that is truly infinite:
The creativity of the human mind, at least so far, seems to be infinite. From such machines of the last century (we all used them, didn’t we?) have flowed great literature (as well as nonsense) without any end.
And from the 26 little letters of the English language have flowed infinite combinations of words and sentences and thoughts and ideas ranging from Shakespeare’s plays to Melville’s Moby Dick to Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye to my books, your poems, his instruction manual, her sermons — and every possible variation under the sun. Including our blogs!
And the same source flows freely in every language in which people indite their thoughts and dreams and hopes and fears. Infinity, indeed!
Touch2Touch 
As so often, you are putting it all in perspective for us. This response is brilliant, Judith (as is, to my opinion, this week’s thought provoking challenge itself): Beautiful pictures combine with a great idea here … yes, all those things you can combine ad infinitum, with language as one of the most elegant, most subtle, most sublime ‘construction kits’ of them all…
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Love your description of language —
A great Christmas gift, eh? this magnificent DIY “construction kit”.
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Love it!
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You have a wicked way with words yourself, Mme. C.
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When you can’t spell you have to make them up!
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😆
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I can never look at a photo of a typewriter without hearing the wonderful sounds they make. What a lovely thought regarding the infinity of hopes and dreams!
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A wonderful sound, yes indeed! Even my wonderful MacBook can’t duplicate it.
Listen to this delightful youtube of Leroy Anderson’s beloved The Typewriter:
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Thank you Judith, that was so much fun and what clever fingers!!! My typewriters never sounded so fluent!
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Neither did mine, Patti.
😦
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Marvelous …………..infinity indeed………..just marvelous!!
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Among those marvelous results of typing fingers combining letters were — the Tin Man and his friends!
L.Frank Baum was a genius. The Hub and his class, in grade school, if they were very very good, got to have the teacher read them a story of Oz!
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Indite. A new word for me. Thanks.
Smith Corona! Not so new for me. Ah, yes. I remember it well.
Infinite indeed.
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Smith Corona sounds pretty exotic to me. I used a Royal forever and ever.
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I worked for Royal, but remember SC. How did we do it? 😉
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With carbon paper and lots of White-out! (wite-out?)
😉
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LOL
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You’ve demonstrated your point wonderfully well with this blog. Your creativity is endless! (And inspirational 🙂
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You’re one of MY inspirations, Pauline!
Your way with the magical 26 never ceases to astound me.
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Now there’s a post – the magical 26. Or maybe even a children’s story. Inspiration, apparently, is a two way street with us!
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Pauline! Inspiration indeed —-
You NEED to do that children’s story about The Magical 26. I can’t wait to read it!
I can almost see illustrations — maybe collaged? Cut outs? Two color line drawings? I dunno, you’re the creative one here.
A winter project!
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So very true. Walk into a bookstore (remember those?) and look around – THERE is infinity. That great and endless expansion of our minds and spirits put down for all of us to share. Indeed, like these blogs!
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Blogs also being made up of what Pauline and I are calling The Magical 26!
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Loved this post, Judith! 🙂 Lived and worked with the typewriter for many years, and corrected typos with razor blades. And yes, it’s mind boggling how many words can be made up of those twenty six little letters … in Swedish, we at least have three extra ones [å, ä and ö].
I have yet to respond to the actual photo challenge. I have an idea, and I will see first how many have thought of the same thing 🙂
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Razor blades? Ouf! And I thought white-out was bad!
It would be fun to have three extra letters — I wonder if it triggers new thoughts?
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I doubt it. Many seem to want to get rid of them … they take into consideration when naming their children, so that the name won’t contain any of those three. Big corporations have changed names .. like Skånska became Skanska, and Götabanken … Gotabank .. all to fit in in the English-speaking world…
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The delights of diversity — another pleasure crossed off the list, eh? Conformity shrinking our world —
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A very good take on Infinite Judith. There are so many ways to tell new tales and rehash old ones – though I’m not sure that Shakespeare used a Smith Corona 😉 Within the wordpress community there must be an infinity of ideas being expressed 🙂
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I’m quite sure you’re right —- it was my understanding that he used a Royal. 😉
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Ahh – you’ve seen ‘Shakespeare in love’ then 😉
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😆
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What a beautiful play on this word! Love it. 🙂
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Thanks so much, Tara!
🙂
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