“The eyes believe themselves the ears believe other people.” – German proverb
“A man does not die of love or his liver or even of old age he dies of being a man.” – Miguel de Unamuno
“I am an eyewitness to the ways in which people relate to themselves and to each other, and my work is a way of scooping and ladling that experience.” – Richard Neutra
“History is the study of lies, anyway, because no witness ever recalls events with total accuracy, not even eyewitnesses” – Nancy Pickard
Q: Were you present when your picture was taken? – A court joke
“Silence is as full of potential wisdom and wit as the unshown marble of great sculpture. The silent bear no witness against themselves.” – Aldous Huxley
“You never know how much a man can’t remember until he’s called a ‘witness'” – Will Rogers.
Life
…for lack of a better title…
Here’s one of the most interesting displays of democratic ideals in the United States of America: a set of turkeys – yes the animals and not the humans from the country of Turkey – are 
In any case, there was no such presidential decree, ceremonial or otherwise, in Edwardsville today as I stepped out of the house to my host’s Thanksgiving get-together. And God bless them too. Even if I was a vegetarian, today was one of those days when it was better to renounce the faith for the good of all humanity, and peace on earth. Well, maybe I exaggerate. In short, I had a very nice day. The food included turkey, of course, turnips, smoked bacon, bread, crab and sausage stuffing, green beans, potato pie (the real sweet potato), chocolates, whipped cream, ice cream of different flavours, sweet corn, cranberry sauce, salad and other fruits and drinks (sparkling wine, white wine, red wine, mojito and margaritas) – a very traditional American meal.
The get-together also included a diverse mix of people: My hosts, their beautiful daughter and her partner both from the state of Utah, their friends, neighbours white and black, acquaintances, a few elderly women looking gorgeous and us – the Africans. We had gone there with a Thanksgiving card, one of the ones that I bought since a few weeks ago, as well as a copy of Chimamanda Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun as a kind of present, which they both greatly appreciated. The repercussion of that thoughtless decision is now that I had to leave the house when the gathering eventually dispersed with a huge paper sack of very many great used books of fiction, history, non-fiction and poetry which, according to my host were already slated for giving away before we showed up. He loves us, that man, and he has asked us to come back for as many more books as we want, for his giving away. One of the things that North America is full of, if I may assume, is plenty great books to which I would never say no.