From Nicholson Baker's "The Anthologist"

But here's the thing.  Horace didn't say that.  "Carpe diem" doesn't mean seize the day--it means sometjing gentler and more sensible.  "Carpe diem" means pluck the day.  Carpe, pluck.  Seize the day would be "cape diem," if my school Latin serves.  No R.  Very different piece of advice.

What Horace had in mind was that you should gently pull on the day's stem, as if it were, say, a wildflower or an olive, holding it with all the practiced care of your thumb and the side of your finger, which knows how to not crush easily crushed things--so that the day's stalk or stem undergoes increasing tension and draws to a thinness, and a tightness, and then snaps softly away at its weakest point, perhaps leaking a little milky sap, and the flower, or the fruit, is released in your hand.  Pluck the cranberry or the blueberry of the day tenderly free without damaging it is what Horace meant--pick the day, harvest the day, reap the day, mow the day, forage the day.  Don't freaking grab the day in your fist like a burger at a fairground and take a big chomping bite out of it.  That's not the kind of man that Horace was.

JBGoode

It is Friday: Ready For Chuck Berry

Winterland: 1967

The Rose Hotel; Robert Earl Keen

A day late........

He was walkin' through the alley way
Where the drifters sleep and the wild dogs play
The moon was black, the sky was grey
He thought he was alone

She was waiting at the rose hotel
across the street from the wishing well
Turned the latch and broke a nail
Checked her mobile phone

Chorus
Sometimes you run, sometimes you stall
Sometimes you don't get up at all
Sometimes you run, sometimes you fall

He bought a ticket on the uptown train
Got off at 8th and Birmingham
Wondered if she gave a damn about him anymore

She hadn't seen him in a year or so
Why he called she did not know
She had the oldies on the radio and someone at the door

Chorus

He threw a nickle in the wishin' well
crossed the street to The Rose Hotel
Got no answer when he rang the bell
So he gave a little shout
Tiny watchman with a baseball bat
A cheap cigar and a persian cat
Told him it was too bad that she had just checked out

The Coen Brothers': A Serious Man is a Seriously Great Movie

A Serious Man opens with a quote from the great Jewish sage, Rashi.

“Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you.”