A QUIZ FOR THOSE WITH ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE TO DO AT THE MOMENT.
Which of the following Persons will declare intention to seek GOP nomination before March 1st 2012 ?
1. Glenn Beck
2. Oprah Winfrey
3. Arnold Schwarzenegger
4. Lady Gaga
5. Jerry Sandusky
6. Sarah Palin
Which of the above potential nominees will withdraw from the campaign stating:
A: I decided that I could do more good for the country by pursuing my commitment to eradicate poverty and un-nutritious trans-fats in America.
B: My faith comes first, and it has become clear to me that should I continue in my quest for higher office, I would have to divest myself of my interest in the Jesus Christ and Me Choir and Worship Center to which you can make your tax deductible donations by simply visiting JCandME.com
C: What that woman said is a complete and total misapprehension of an untruth. I never have and never will succumb to such contemptiblous accusations aspersing on my character.
D: This is so so so very unfair and even unconstitutional. However my lawyers have advised me that anything I say about these lying sacks of shit who think they’re holier than thou and never had the urge themselves to enjoy a little fun and games with young and frolicsome children for whom I only have the greatest fondness and affection may be used against me in a court of law, so I therefore decline to comment.
Seven major television news organizations will air special coverage this spring of what event?
1. The opening of the Lou Dobbs Memorial 1800 mile Fence to honor the brave men and women of Texas who served their nation during the Mexican American War.
2. The Launching of a commercially sponsored orbital space satellite from Google and Apple (called: Goople) providing instant wireless (for a fee) access to every song, movie, book, publication ever written, produced, or performed since the dawn of civilization.
3. The discovery of the body of Jimmy Hoffa stuffed in an old Queen Anne's sofa that was sold at Sotheby’s Robert Kennedy estate auction.
4. An All-Star Rock and Roll Charity Benefit Concert entitled: SuperStars for Saving the Euro. All proceeds will go to: Greece, Spain, Italy, France, Germany et.al.
5. An All-Star Rock and Roll Charity Benefit Concert entitled: SuperStars for Bringing Back the Euro. All proceeds will go to: Greece, Spain, Italy, France, Germany et.al.
The NFL will announce that for the 2012-2013 season:
a. Every challenge and “play under review” will be subject to review by the television audience who will text their vote by smart phone and outcome will be determined by majority rule.
b. All Helmets will be equipped with “concussion sensors” and digital read-outs will be transmitted via an on-screen graphic so that viewers can see the severity of each and every blow to the head.
c. Scantily Clad Cheerleaders in Northern State Non-Domed stadiums will be injected before each game with a three part mixture of liquefied whale blubber, 100% Blue Agave Tequila and extra strength Percocet to prevent unsightly shivering and gooseflesh during dance routines.
d. In addition to the two minute warning the league will institute a five minute warning prior to the end of each quarter, a four minute warning prior to half-time, a three minute time-out for patriotic song, and 6 optional 2 minute time-outs for the league to use at their discretion pending volume of advertising minutes sold for each broadcast.
Fill in the Blanks from available choices
1. Bernard Madoff will_____________
a: Be pardoned and go to Italy as Secretary of Finance.
b: Will admit to rigging the dice in Prison craps game.
c: Will author recipe book: “ Cooking the Numbers”
d: Die, and autopsy will reveal that he was an escaped animatronic machine created at Disney Labs to be the Santa Claus figure in Xmas diorama.
The United States Constitution will_______________
a: Be amended to clarify Amendment 8 whereby definition of infliction of cruel and unusual punishment will be at the sole discretion of elected or appointed law enforcement authorities
b: Be burned at a Tea Party Rally in Miami where Donald Trump lights the match as Michelle Bachman recites passages from Atlas Shrugged.
c: will be discredited in light of substantial evidence that it was written by mere mortals and should be replaced by the word of God as it appears in the Bible.
d: Will be rewritten in it’s entirety by a special commission consisting of select members of the clergy, Producers of American Idol, The US Dept. of Defense, Goldman Sachs, and The Daughters of the American Revolution.
True or False.
A progressive tax code raises more base revenue during recessionary periods than flat tax rates if flat tax rates do not exceed investment spending by lending institutions whose interest rate requirements are tied to bond market dividends assuming fluctuations in currency markets remain stable or unchanged.
From 1948- 1962 Bugs Bunny’s phone was secretly tapped by FBI under direct order of J. Edgar Hoover.
Excessive television watching by children between the ages of 2 -12 can lead to excessive television watching during the ages of 13-86.
If all the words from all the blogs written on the average day were strung together in one continuous sentence, that sentence would make more sense than 68% of all sentences on all blogs.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Monday, November 28, 2011
BY POPULAR DEMAND...
Seems I have readers who would like to "comment" but have been stymied by the non-inituitive Blogspot system.
Not sure I've solved the dilemma myself but here's what I do know.
first: click on comments at end of post
If you click on Name/URL you can just enter your name(of choice) and the URL is optional. Then comment and publish.
If you click on Anonymous, you can just go ahead and comment and publish .
If neither of these works...then I assume you need a google ID...which you get at google.com and sign up for e-mail or create an account...or whatever they tell you...anyway it's free.
Good luck...cause I'm no smarter than you and until they make this easier we should all go back to reading books and writing in longhand.
Oh wait...there's one more way...look over to the right at top of blog and click on "join this site" and you can sign up to Google that way. By the way, joining this site will obligate you in no way to me...but i can't speak for anyone else out there in the digital ether who be trolling for spam suckers.
Seems I have readers who would like to "comment" but have been stymied by the non-inituitive Blogspot system.
Not sure I've solved the dilemma myself but here's what I do know.
first: click on comments at end of post
If you click on Name/URL you can just enter your name(of choice) and the URL is optional. Then comment and publish.
If you click on Anonymous, you can just go ahead and comment and publish .
If neither of these works...then I assume you need a google ID...which you get at google.com and sign up for e-mail or create an account...or whatever they tell you...anyway it's free.
Good luck...cause I'm no smarter than you and until they make this easier we should all go back to reading books and writing in longhand.
Oh wait...there's one more way...look over to the right at top of blog and click on "join this site" and you can sign up to Google that way. By the way, joining this site will obligate you in no way to me...but i can't speak for anyone else out there in the digital ether who be trolling for spam suckers.
TOO BUSY BURPING, YAWNING, FLATULATING, MOANING, AND EATING LEFTOVERS TO POST ANYTHING…AND THEN OLD PAL JEREMY PROVIDES THE MUSE…
Jeremy (JLG)…my oldest friend (as in our friendship goes back further than any other in my life) sent me a few notes and among them, a note that Jeff Healey, who was featured playing guitar in previous post was also deserving of an RIP after his name. Healey was a remarkable musician who in addition to his unique guitar skills (he played with the instrument on his lap) took up the trumpet late in life and channeled his idol (Louis Armstrong) playing Classic American Jazz on records and in the club he founded in Toronto that bore his name.
JLG also suggested over the phone that I might look for some James Jamerson video to post. For those not familiar with the name, suffice to say that he was the bass player on just about all the tracks that came out of Motown in the 60’s and early 70’s and to say that his contribution was an important factor in the sound and success of that music would qualify as music history understatement of the decade. All you have to do is listen to those tunes and imagine that the bass line was replaced by something standard and generic and you’ll hear for yourself how his playing didn’t only make that music cook, it transported it into the highest realm of creative art. A few years back there was a documentary called “ Standing in the Shadows of Motown” that told the story of the house band “The Funk Brothers” who backed up all the singers and groups who recorded in that cramped Detroit basement studio and became the Stars of Motown. That movie had its genesis in a book called: Standing in the Shadows of Motown: The Life and Music of Legendary Bassist James Jamerson. The book was all about Jamerson and doubled as a study guide with a CD that included tracks played by a host of bassists influenced by Jamerson (the publication was made possible in part by Paul McCartney) and the book title was then attached to the film to tell the story of the entire band for the movie.
Anyway, it was Jeremy who first called Jamerson to my attention, and I’ve been paying attention ever since every time I listen to those Motown tunes.
There’s not much to choose from online by way of live performances where you can see Jamerson (partly because it was always about the singers and not the band—which is par for the course and always annoying) but there are probably hundreds of videos of bass players laying down their own versions of Jamerson’s bass lines. It’s like some rite of passage--which is probably as it should be. But I found this, which is a great (and to me, moving) live performance of a Marvin Gaye classic (with Marvin stretching out on piano for a long spell) intercut with some inner city street footage intended to illustrate “What’s Goin On” and some nice shots of Jamerson sitting by his side (at 1:23 and at 2:23) and providing what only he could bring to the party.
Notable Quotables
"Where there is no hope, it is incumbent on us to invent it." This, I think, is a great argument for the power of
secular humanism and proof that one needs no imaginary sky daddy to have a strong sense of morality and duty.
Albert Camus
God. He loves you. And he needs your money.
He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can't handle money!
George Carlin
“Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest”
Diderot
"Experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution." --- James Madison,
I’m still thinking about the Life is a Comedy v. Life is a Tragedy dichotomy and thought I’d start a list.
On the Life is a Comedy side I would put…
Shakespeare
Bach
Hayden
Socrates
Moliere
Swift
Mozart
Balzac
Wilde
Twain
Whitman
Mencken
Einstein
Randy Newman (if he got his due, he’d be known on a one name basis too)
And on the Life is a Tragedy side…
Aristotle
Hobbes
Dickens
Nietzsche
Melville
Yeats
Eliot
Hugo
Tolstoy
Hemingway
Marx
Mahler
O’Neill
Fitzgerald
Dylan
Sartre
Heard much about new novel “The Art of Fielding” and Ellen got it for me for my birthday. I’m about 150 pages in and if I were to heed the advice “If you have nothing good to say, then say nothing.”…then I would say this:
Jeremy (JLG)…my oldest friend (as in our friendship goes back further than any other in my life) sent me a few notes and among them, a note that Jeff Healey, who was featured playing guitar in previous post was also deserving of an RIP after his name. Healey was a remarkable musician who in addition to his unique guitar skills (he played with the instrument on his lap) took up the trumpet late in life and channeled his idol (Louis Armstrong) playing Classic American Jazz on records and in the club he founded in Toronto that bore his name.
JLG also suggested over the phone that I might look for some James Jamerson video to post. For those not familiar with the name, suffice to say that he was the bass player on just about all the tracks that came out of Motown in the 60’s and early 70’s and to say that his contribution was an important factor in the sound and success of that music would qualify as music history understatement of the decade. All you have to do is listen to those tunes and imagine that the bass line was replaced by something standard and generic and you’ll hear for yourself how his playing didn’t only make that music cook, it transported it into the highest realm of creative art. A few years back there was a documentary called “ Standing in the Shadows of Motown” that told the story of the house band “The Funk Brothers” who backed up all the singers and groups who recorded in that cramped Detroit basement studio and became the Stars of Motown. That movie had its genesis in a book called: Standing in the Shadows of Motown: The Life and Music of Legendary Bassist James Jamerson. The book was all about Jamerson and doubled as a study guide with a CD that included tracks played by a host of bassists influenced by Jamerson (the publication was made possible in part by Paul McCartney) and the book title was then attached to the film to tell the story of the entire band for the movie.
Anyway, it was Jeremy who first called Jamerson to my attention, and I’ve been paying attention ever since every time I listen to those Motown tunes.
There’s not much to choose from online by way of live performances where you can see Jamerson (partly because it was always about the singers and not the band—which is par for the course and always annoying) but there are probably hundreds of videos of bass players laying down their own versions of Jamerson’s bass lines. It’s like some rite of passage--which is probably as it should be. But I found this, which is a great (and to me, moving) live performance of a Marvin Gaye classic (with Marvin stretching out on piano for a long spell) intercut with some inner city street footage intended to illustrate “What’s Goin On” and some nice shots of Jamerson sitting by his side (at 1:23 and at 2:23) and providing what only he could bring to the party.
Notable Quotables
"Where there is no hope, it is incumbent on us to invent it." This, I think, is a great argument for the power of
secular humanism and proof that one needs no imaginary sky daddy to have a strong sense of morality and duty.
Albert Camus
God. He loves you. And he needs your money.
He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can't handle money!
George Carlin
“Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest”
Diderot
"Experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution." --- James Madison,
I’m still thinking about the Life is a Comedy v. Life is a Tragedy dichotomy and thought I’d start a list.
On the Life is a Comedy side I would put…
Shakespeare
Bach
Hayden
Socrates
Moliere
Swift
Mozart
Balzac
Wilde
Twain
Whitman
Mencken
Einstein
Randy Newman (if he got his due, he’d be known on a one name basis too)
And on the Life is a Tragedy side…
Aristotle
Hobbes
Dickens
Nietzsche
Melville
Yeats
Eliot
Hugo
Tolstoy
Hemingway
Marx
Mahler
O’Neill
Fitzgerald
Dylan
Sartre
Heard much about new novel “The Art of Fielding” and Ellen got it for me for my birthday. I’m about 150 pages in and if I were to heed the advice “If you have nothing good to say, then say nothing.”…then I would say this:
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Looking for some art work to illustrate today's post and was taken with this. I imagine someone told the kid to try drawing a hand and then put feet at the wrist and a face on the thumb and voila! You got a turkey!
A HISTORICAL, CHEMICAL, GASTRONOMICAL, LIMERICKAL, CINEMATICAL, MUSICAL THANKSGIVING POST.
Food, family, and imaginary friend-free!
My favorite (next to Festivus) cause there’s no religion.
And is there a more heartwarming compound word in the language than the one that combines gratitude with generosity?
But before playtime resumes, let's examine the historical record.
Like most long-standing tradition based holidays, we celebrate despite having to view it through a haze of hype, and end up mything the point.
The facts surrounding life in and around Plymouth Rock circa 1621 are sketchy, but no doubt about fact that the Pilgrims didn’t create the Thanksgiving tradition, or even celebrate it in the manner we were taught.
They just got the credit many years later in 1863 when Lincoln (urged on by writer/editor and author of Mary Had a Little Lamb--Sarah Josepha Hale) initiated the first official thanksgiving holiday to boost the nation’s morale and instill some much needed sense of national unity amidst the bloody carnage of the civil war.
But if there’s any kernel of truth to the tale of the Pilgrims, it would arise from the assumption that they would have been foolish not to practice some degree of diplomacy with their native hosts or risk being regarded as godless heathens given their surprising and uninvited arrival. And considering their lack of experience and skills at providing for themselves in their new found primitive predicament, it certainly behooved them to show some gratitude to the Wampanoag Native Americans for helping them learn to plant seeds and fish.
Unfortunately, it’s mostly wishful thinking that they behaved any better than any other entitled European paternalistic “white supremacist ” invader, despite their self identification as outcasts and victims of oppression. I only recently discovered that all were not “separatists” on the Mayflower by a long shot, and approx. half of them were just tagging along for various reasons of their own (including providing protection and labor for profit) and not affiliated with their religious freedom seeking shipmates. Wonder if these others were the one’s who chilled peacefully and broke bread with the natives-- and history recorded it all wrong and credited the less tolerant party with the now legendary hospitable gesture.
But enough politics, let’s talk turkey.
This is tryptophan and I’m not showing it here to boast of any understanding of chemical structure, but to share with you the irrefutable evidence that the structure appears to resemble a turkey!
AND…according to Wikipedia, Triptophan has been unjustly accused and is not the chief culprit responsible for post -thanksgiving meal malaise :
"…feast-induced drowsiness"—and, in particular, the common post-Christmas and North American post-Thanksgiving dinner drowsiness—may be the result of a heavy meal rich in carbohydrates, which, via an indirect mechanism, increases the production of sleep-promoting melatonin in the brain.”
…AND THE TURKEY COULDA BEEN A CONTENDA!
From Adam Gopnik in last week’s New Yorker…
Benjamin Franklin disliked the choice of the bald eagle as the national bird, and it was in a letter to his daughter, in 1784, that he proposed putting the turkey in its place. The eagle, Franklin points out, is “a bird of bad moral character. He does not get his living honestly. . . . He watches the labor of the fishing hawk; and when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish, and is bearing it to his nest for the support of his mate and young ones, the bald eagle pursues him, and takes it from him.” Truly, a one-per-cent kind of bird. The turkey, however, represented to Franklin the best of bourgeois Philadelphia values. The turkey is not only a native; “He is besides, though a little vain and silly, a bird of courage, and would not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British guards who should presume to invade his farm yard with a red coat on.”
TIME FOR A LIMERICK INTERLUDE
There were cousins and uncles and aunts
Turkey, stuffing, and wine made in France
Then a shot from the sky!
Diving into the pie!
Went the top button off of my pants
From a web site: Today I found Out.
“Due to the white meat being the most popular part of the bird, turkeys have been bred to have huge breasts—so much so, that today’s domesticated turkeys are unable to mate cause those boobies get in the way of male attempts to mount the female. Thus, most hatcheries use artificial insemination to fertilize the eggs…”
Wow…just like the humans in some areas of Los Angeles.
I FOUND A VIDEO ONLINE THAT GRAPHICALLY DOCUMENTED HOW TO LIBERATE A TURKEY FROM THE BONDS OF ITS MORTAL COIL--BUT DECIDED IT MIGHT INADVERTENTLY CONVERT A FEW READERS TO VEGETARIANISM AND DISAPPOINT THE MANY HARD WORKING SOULS OUT THERE WHO HAVE WORKED LONG HOURS PREPARING THEIR FINE HOLIDAY FOWL. BUT FOR THOSE MORE CURIOUS THAN EPICURIOUS...CHECK IT OUT AT:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-klein/how-to-kill-a-turkey_b_1104583.html
Returning now to a lighter and perhaps even trite tone of blog... here’s something shorter and sweeter than anything else you’re likely to see these days from these two altacocker’s...but Rudy at the end just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
POFT:
Pilgrims ate popcorn at the first Thanksgiving dinner.
NOTABLE QUOTABLES
“There is no sincerer love than the love of food.” –George Bernard Shaw
“Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: it must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all.” –William Faulkner
“I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land.” –Jon Stewart
“Only a stomach that rarely feels hungry scorns common things.” –Horace
This has nothing to do with Thanksgiving. The Video is a blurry mess, though the sound is pretty good...and I have no explanation for why I'm posting it other than that it makes me happy and oh...what a band!!!
MAVIS STAPLES! vocals
DAVE SANBORN! sax
HIRAM BULLOCK! (RIP) guitar
JEFF HEALEY! guitar
DR. JOHN! piano
MARCUS MILLER! bass
BRENDA V. BROWNE! keys
OMAR HAKIM! drums (I think that’s him)
ENJOY AND HAPPY GOBBLER GOBBLING.
A HISTORICAL, CHEMICAL, GASTRONOMICAL, LIMERICKAL, CINEMATICAL, MUSICAL THANKSGIVING POST.
Food, family, and imaginary friend-free!
My favorite (next to Festivus) cause there’s no religion.
And is there a more heartwarming compound word in the language than the one that combines gratitude with generosity?
But before playtime resumes, let's examine the historical record.
Like most long-standing tradition based holidays, we celebrate despite having to view it through a haze of hype, and end up mything the point.
The facts surrounding life in and around Plymouth Rock circa 1621 are sketchy, but no doubt about fact that the Pilgrims didn’t create the Thanksgiving tradition, or even celebrate it in the manner we were taught.
They just got the credit many years later in 1863 when Lincoln (urged on by writer/editor and author of Mary Had a Little Lamb--Sarah Josepha Hale) initiated the first official thanksgiving holiday to boost the nation’s morale and instill some much needed sense of national unity amidst the bloody carnage of the civil war.
But if there’s any kernel of truth to the tale of the Pilgrims, it would arise from the assumption that they would have been foolish not to practice some degree of diplomacy with their native hosts or risk being regarded as godless heathens given their surprising and uninvited arrival. And considering their lack of experience and skills at providing for themselves in their new found primitive predicament, it certainly behooved them to show some gratitude to the Wampanoag Native Americans for helping them learn to plant seeds and fish.
Unfortunately, it’s mostly wishful thinking that they behaved any better than any other entitled European paternalistic “white supremacist ” invader, despite their self identification as outcasts and victims of oppression. I only recently discovered that all were not “separatists” on the Mayflower by a long shot, and approx. half of them were just tagging along for various reasons of their own (including providing protection and labor for profit) and not affiliated with their religious freedom seeking shipmates. Wonder if these others were the one’s who chilled peacefully and broke bread with the natives-- and history recorded it all wrong and credited the less tolerant party with the now legendary hospitable gesture.
But enough politics, let’s talk turkey.
This is tryptophan and I’m not showing it here to boast of any understanding of chemical structure, but to share with you the irrefutable evidence that the structure appears to resemble a turkey!AND…according to Wikipedia, Triptophan has been unjustly accused and is not the chief culprit responsible for post -thanksgiving meal malaise :
"…feast-induced drowsiness"—and, in particular, the common post-Christmas and North American post-Thanksgiving dinner drowsiness—may be the result of a heavy meal rich in carbohydrates, which, via an indirect mechanism, increases the production of sleep-promoting melatonin in the brain.”
…AND THE TURKEY COULDA BEEN A CONTENDA!
From Adam Gopnik in last week’s New Yorker…
Benjamin Franklin disliked the choice of the bald eagle as the national bird, and it was in a letter to his daughter, in 1784, that he proposed putting the turkey in its place. The eagle, Franklin points out, is “a bird of bad moral character. He does not get his living honestly. . . . He watches the labor of the fishing hawk; and when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish, and is bearing it to his nest for the support of his mate and young ones, the bald eagle pursues him, and takes it from him.” Truly, a one-per-cent kind of bird. The turkey, however, represented to Franklin the best of bourgeois Philadelphia values. The turkey is not only a native; “He is besides, though a little vain and silly, a bird of courage, and would not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British guards who should presume to invade his farm yard with a red coat on.”
TIME FOR A LIMERICK INTERLUDE
There were cousins and uncles and aunts
Turkey, stuffing, and wine made in France
Then a shot from the sky!
Diving into the pie!
Went the top button off of my pants
From a web site: Today I found Out.
“Due to the white meat being the most popular part of the bird, turkeys have been bred to have huge breasts—so much so, that today’s domesticated turkeys are unable to mate cause those boobies get in the way of male attempts to mount the female. Thus, most hatcheries use artificial insemination to fertilize the eggs…”
Wow…just like the humans in some areas of Los Angeles.
I FOUND A VIDEO ONLINE THAT GRAPHICALLY DOCUMENTED HOW TO LIBERATE A TURKEY FROM THE BONDS OF ITS MORTAL COIL--BUT DECIDED IT MIGHT INADVERTENTLY CONVERT A FEW READERS TO VEGETARIANISM AND DISAPPOINT THE MANY HARD WORKING SOULS OUT THERE WHO HAVE WORKED LONG HOURS PREPARING THEIR FINE HOLIDAY FOWL. BUT FOR THOSE MORE CURIOUS THAN EPICURIOUS...CHECK IT OUT AT:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-klein/how-to-kill-a-turkey_b_1104583.html
Returning now to a lighter and perhaps even trite tone of blog... here’s something shorter and sweeter than anything else you’re likely to see these days from these two altacocker’s...but Rudy at the end just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
POFT:
Pilgrims ate popcorn at the first Thanksgiving dinner.
NOTABLE QUOTABLES
“There is no sincerer love than the love of food.” –George Bernard Shaw
“Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: it must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all.” –William Faulkner
“I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land.” –Jon Stewart
“Only a stomach that rarely feels hungry scorns common things.” –Horace
This has nothing to do with Thanksgiving. The Video is a blurry mess, though the sound is pretty good...and I have no explanation for why I'm posting it other than that it makes me happy and oh...what a band!!!
MAVIS STAPLES! vocals
DAVE SANBORN! sax
HIRAM BULLOCK! (RIP) guitar
JEFF HEALEY! guitar
DR. JOHN! piano
MARCUS MILLER! bass
BRENDA V. BROWNE! keys
OMAR HAKIM! drums (I think that’s him)
ENJOY AND HAPPY GOBBLER GOBBLING.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Renee to the rescue!
No one, particularly me, liked how the outdoor shower deck was constructed. (pic a few posts back) so Renee came up with elegant, smart solution that only requires minimum addition to existing design. And since Renee provided a detailed drawing (as only she can) there should be no confusion this time as to what we're envisioning. Thanks Renee!
Thumbing through The Dictionary of American Regional English and discovering that:
…in the Appalachians, when they say dew poison, they are probably talking about what most of us call ‘athlete’s foot.’ …. which explains why, in the old folk song, a bachelor would keep his lover from the foggy, foggy dew.
Picayune, from French picaillon, meaning ‘old copper coin,’ originally referred to a coin of little value in Louisiana, especially New Orleans.
Just north of the Mason-Dixon line:
Lightning bugs morph into fireflies.
Skillets transform into frying pans.
Teeter-totters become seesaws.
Some American houses are cleaned with vacuums, some with sweepers …and some not at all.
The variants of American regional English compound quickly. A few more match-ups worth noting:
Shopping cart (Midwest & East) vs. shopping buggy (South)
Long johns (Midwest & South) vs. thermals (East & West)
Bag vs. sack
Sucker vs. lollipop
Billfold (South) vs. wallet
Iced tea vs. sweet tea (South)
Like similar oaths (jimminy crickets etc), jeezum crow is a thinly veiled blasphemy. Highly regional, almost confined to New England, and according to the Dictionary it likely sprung from Vermont and upstate New York vernacular speech.
For describing a remote place we have:
the boonies,
the sticks,
the tules,
the puckerbrush,
and the willywags.
The proverbial village idiot, in such a place, might still be described as unfit to carry guts to a bear or pour piss out of a boot.
Ain't he adorable? He's in Ellenville NY in the Hudson Valley. Several legends claim that the “Boy” represents a well-liked newsboy who sold his paper on the streets of a town in Italy, and drowned one day while fishing. Another is that he was a Civil War drummer boy who would pull off his boot, run down to a nearby creek holding his thumb in the hole in the toe of the boot, and bring back water to fever- stricken dying soldiers. Apparently, there's many a boy just like him in town squares all over the country--go figgeuh.
…If your mental condition is temporarily impaired, a Southerner might call you swimmy-headed, meaning dizzy.
…If your home is dirty, a Northeasterner might call it skeevy, an adaptation of schifare, the Italian verb “to disgust.
A "monkey's wedding" is a chaotic, messy situation in Maine; "cockroach killers" are pointy shoes in New Jersey
and "mumble squibbles" are noogies, North Carolina-style.
pitch-in =scramble = potluck.
And a random sampling also reveals:
elbedritsch (n) An imaginary creature which, as a practical joke, a greenhorn is sent to hunt or capture. (Usage: Southeast Pennsylvania)
flannel cake (n) A pancake. (Usage: Appalachians)
flea in one's ear (n) A hint, warning, disquieting disclosure; a rebuke. (Usage: chiefly the Northeast)
honeyfuggle (v) To swindle or dupe; to intend to cheat or trick. (Usage: scattered)
hookem-snivey (adj) Deceitful, sneaky. (Usage: scattered)
Lucy Bowles (n) Diarrhea; loose bowels. (Usage: scattered, but especially Pennsylvania, New Jersey and southeast New York)
mulligrubs (n) A condition of despondency or ill temper; a vague or imaginary unwellness. (Usage: scattered, but especially the South)
nebby (adj) Snoopy, inquisitive. (Usage: chiefly Pennsylvania)
pungle (v) To shell out; to plunk down (money); to pay up. (Usage: chiefly West)
rantum scoot (n) An outing with no definite destination (Usage: scattered)
roller bird (n) blue jay (Usage: In the vicinity of Dothan, Ala., bluejays are often called "roller birds" because when chinaberries are ripe, the birds sit in the trees and gorge themselves until they grow drunk. Then they tumble out of the trees and roll on the ground, and the cats creep out and eat them.)
say-so (n) An ice-cream cone. (Usage: scattered)
The Search for Memorable Music in Movies continues:
Today it’s Hoagy Carmichael, a notable Great American Songbook contributor who is well represented online with many clips from a number of movies. I’ve become a big Carmichael fan and added many of his tunes to my repertoire (The Nearness of You, Old Rockin Chair, Georgia on my Mind, and to my delight, only recently learned that he’s the guy who wrote the perennial fave: Heart and Soul) and his expressive and laconic personality got him more screen time than was generally the case with musicians in film. You’d never know it from his simple tunes and screen persona, but he was a killer bop player.
In To Have and Have Not (Based unrecognizably on Hemingway’s book with Screenplay co-written by William Faulkner ) with Bogie and Bacall, Hoagy played the house pianist/singer, kinda like Dooley Wilson in Casablanca…and the plots of both pictures are similar. I Wonder how many cigarettes the prop person was required to stock on a Bogie/Bacall picture...not to mention the gazillion gallons of fake (or was it?) booze.
No one, particularly me, liked how the outdoor shower deck was constructed. (pic a few posts back) so Renee came up with elegant, smart solution that only requires minimum addition to existing design. And since Renee provided a detailed drawing (as only she can) there should be no confusion this time as to what we're envisioning. Thanks Renee!
Thumbing through The Dictionary of American Regional English and discovering that: …in the Appalachians, when they say dew poison, they are probably talking about what most of us call ‘athlete’s foot.’ …. which explains why, in the old folk song, a bachelor would keep his lover from the foggy, foggy dew.
Picayune, from French picaillon, meaning ‘old copper coin,’ originally referred to a coin of little value in Louisiana, especially New Orleans.
Just north of the Mason-Dixon line:
Lightning bugs morph into fireflies.
Skillets transform into frying pans.
Teeter-totters become seesaws.
Some American houses are cleaned with vacuums, some with sweepers …and some not at all.
The variants of American regional English compound quickly. A few more match-ups worth noting:
Shopping cart (Midwest & East) vs. shopping buggy (South)
Long johns (Midwest & South) vs. thermals (East & West)
Bag vs. sack
Sucker vs. lollipop
Billfold (South) vs. wallet
Iced tea vs. sweet tea (South)
Like similar oaths (jimminy crickets etc), jeezum crow is a thinly veiled blasphemy. Highly regional, almost confined to New England, and according to the Dictionary it likely sprung from Vermont and upstate New York vernacular speech.For describing a remote place we have:
the boonies,
the sticks,
the tules,
the puckerbrush,
and the willywags.
The proverbial village idiot, in such a place, might still be described as unfit to carry guts to a bear or pour piss out of a boot.
Ain't he adorable? He's in Ellenville NY in the Hudson Valley. Several legends claim that the “Boy” represents a well-liked newsboy who sold his paper on the streets of a town in Italy, and drowned one day while fishing. Another is that he was a Civil War drummer boy who would pull off his boot, run down to a nearby creek holding his thumb in the hole in the toe of the boot, and bring back water to fever- stricken dying soldiers. Apparently, there's many a boy just like him in town squares all over the country--go figgeuh.
…If your mental condition is temporarily impaired, a Southerner might call you swimmy-headed, meaning dizzy.
…If your home is dirty, a Northeasterner might call it skeevy, an adaptation of schifare, the Italian verb “to disgust.
A "monkey's wedding" is a chaotic, messy situation in Maine; "cockroach killers" are pointy shoes in New Jersey
and "mumble squibbles" are noogies, North Carolina-style.
pitch-in =scramble = potluck.
And a random sampling also reveals:
elbedritsch (n) An imaginary creature which, as a practical joke, a greenhorn is sent to hunt or capture. (Usage: Southeast Pennsylvania)
flannel cake (n) A pancake. (Usage: Appalachians)
flea in one's ear (n) A hint, warning, disquieting disclosure; a rebuke. (Usage: chiefly the Northeast)
honeyfuggle (v) To swindle or dupe; to intend to cheat or trick. (Usage: scattered)
hookem-snivey (adj) Deceitful, sneaky. (Usage: scattered)
Lucy Bowles (n) Diarrhea; loose bowels. (Usage: scattered, but especially Pennsylvania, New Jersey and southeast New York)
mulligrubs (n) A condition of despondency or ill temper; a vague or imaginary unwellness. (Usage: scattered, but especially the South)
nebby (adj) Snoopy, inquisitive. (Usage: chiefly Pennsylvania)
pungle (v) To shell out; to plunk down (money); to pay up. (Usage: chiefly West)
rantum scoot (n) An outing with no definite destination (Usage: scattered)
roller bird (n) blue jay (Usage: In the vicinity of Dothan, Ala., bluejays are often called "roller birds" because when chinaberries are ripe, the birds sit in the trees and gorge themselves until they grow drunk. Then they tumble out of the trees and roll on the ground, and the cats creep out and eat them.)
say-so (n) An ice-cream cone. (Usage: scattered)
The Search for Memorable Music in Movies continues:
Today it’s Hoagy Carmichael, a notable Great American Songbook contributor who is well represented online with many clips from a number of movies. I’ve become a big Carmichael fan and added many of his tunes to my repertoire (The Nearness of You, Old Rockin Chair, Georgia on my Mind, and to my delight, only recently learned that he’s the guy who wrote the perennial fave: Heart and Soul) and his expressive and laconic personality got him more screen time than was generally the case with musicians in film. You’d never know it from his simple tunes and screen persona, but he was a killer bop player.
In To Have and Have Not (Based unrecognizably on Hemingway’s book with Screenplay co-written by William Faulkner ) with Bogie and Bacall, Hoagy played the house pianist/singer, kinda like Dooley Wilson in Casablanca…and the plots of both pictures are similar. I Wonder how many cigarettes the prop person was required to stock on a Bogie/Bacall picture...not to mention the gazillion gallons of fake (or was it?) booze.
Monday, November 21, 2011
THE GREAT CIRCLE OF SEARCH
In which the Drifter follows an entirely fictional internet search thread…
Springs....Hot Springs, Spring cleaning, Spring water, Spring Flowers, Spring a leak, Springtime, Younger than Springtime, Arab Spring, Springtime for Hitler, Hitler Youth, Young Aryans, Aryan nation, Nation of Islam, Islam religion, Islamic resistance, resistance movement, political movement, watch movement, Swiss movement, Swiss cheese, Say Cheese, He Says She Says, Simon Says, Simon and Garfunkel, Simon and Schuster, Simonize, Car Wax, Car Finish, Finishing School, Private School, Private Property, Privacy, Privacy rights, Rights of Man, Isle of Man, Isle of Wight, Islanders, Fire Island, Firemen, Fire Department, Fire Fighting, Fighting Spirit, Fighting Irish, Irish Spring, Bedspring, Springs.
THE LONG RUNNING AND TERRIFIC BLOG: teddyvegas.blogspot.com…
…includes many brilliant and brilliantly titled features that I’ve always found entertaining and provocative.
Among my faves are:
LFAQ (LEAST FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS)
RANDOM SINGLE SENTENCE PORTRAIT
And
VAGUELY APPOSITE FRAGMENT
And so with a HAT TIP (which is another of his frequent headers) to my blogging mentor, I’m introducing a new feature today that I hope will have half the staying power of Teddy’s classics.
It’s also a shameless rip off of Harper’s Index that has been a source of many OMG’s for as long as I can remember. But there's a fine line between tribute and theft.
So without further fanfare…
INTRODUCING: FACTICAL FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Or henceforth: FFFT
Ten percent of the Russian government's income comes from the sale of vodka.
Percentage of Israeli settlers who say they would respect a government decision for them to leave the settlements: 68
Percentage of Americans who say that God has spoken to them: 36%
Percentage of CEOs who blame CEOs for the financial meltdown scandals: 69
Percentage of Americans who believe that U.S. Muslims should have to carry special I.D.: 39
Every day more money is printed for The Monopoly Game than by the US Treasury
City with the highest per capita viewership of television evangelists: Washington DC
Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
Social networking site usage grew 88 percent among Internet users aged 55-64 between April 2009 and May 2010
Indonesia has the second largest population on Facebook
Today, the U.S already borrows 42 cents of every dollar spent.
U.S. food prices, are up 34% in the last year, as wages remained stagnant--according to The Economist.
37 out of 44 airports built between 2005 and 2010 have been built in sparsely populated west China.
AND THEN THERE’S JUST…
POFT: PLAIN OLD FASHIONED TRIVIA
No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, and purple.
Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.
Only food that does not spoil: honey (Ed. note -- also only food that does not need to be digested; it's already been digested in the body of the bee)
First novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer.
Watermelons in Japan are genetically modified to grow square...for better stacking.
Texas is the only state that is allowed to fly its state flag at the same height as the U.S. flag.
Pinocchio is Italian for "pine head."
Only animal besides human that can get sunburn: pig
The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.
FLYER SEEN POSTED ON BULLETIN BOARD OF LOCAL RESTAURANT:
Tired of cleaning yourself? Let me do it.
THE CONTINUING SEARCH FOR MUSICAL GEMS IN ODD PLACES ....
I introduced my son Will to Clifford's music with the classic Clifford Brown/Max Roach quintet album when Will was about 14 years old. He loved the song "Joy Spring" so much he asked his teacher to help him learn it...and meanwhile I learned the chord changes so we could play it together. Will learned the tricky head, which to this day I've still not mastered. I never saw any film or video of Clifford taken during his brief career (he died in a car crash at the age of 25) so this for me is a particularly moving discovery, though the video is bad and the sound not much better...but Clifford's genius still comes through.
CLIFFORD BROWN ON SOUPY SALES.
In which the Drifter follows an entirely fictional internet search thread…
Springs....Hot Springs, Spring cleaning, Spring water, Spring Flowers, Spring a leak, Springtime, Younger than Springtime, Arab Spring, Springtime for Hitler, Hitler Youth, Young Aryans, Aryan nation, Nation of Islam, Islam religion, Islamic resistance, resistance movement, political movement, watch movement, Swiss movement, Swiss cheese, Say Cheese, He Says She Says, Simon Says, Simon and Garfunkel, Simon and Schuster, Simonize, Car Wax, Car Finish, Finishing School, Private School, Private Property, Privacy, Privacy rights, Rights of Man, Isle of Man, Isle of Wight, Islanders, Fire Island, Firemen, Fire Department, Fire Fighting, Fighting Spirit, Fighting Irish, Irish Spring, Bedspring, Springs.
THE LONG RUNNING AND TERRIFIC BLOG: teddyvegas.blogspot.com…
…includes many brilliant and brilliantly titled features that I’ve always found entertaining and provocative.
Among my faves are:
LFAQ (LEAST FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS)
RANDOM SINGLE SENTENCE PORTRAIT
And
VAGUELY APPOSITE FRAGMENT
And so with a HAT TIP (which is another of his frequent headers) to my blogging mentor, I’m introducing a new feature today that I hope will have half the staying power of Teddy’s classics.
It’s also a shameless rip off of Harper’s Index that has been a source of many OMG’s for as long as I can remember. But there's a fine line between tribute and theft.
So without further fanfare…
INTRODUCING: FACTICAL FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Or henceforth: FFFT
Ten percent of the Russian government's income comes from the sale of vodka.
Percentage of Israeli settlers who say they would respect a government decision for them to leave the settlements: 68
Percentage of Americans who say that God has spoken to them: 36%
Percentage of CEOs who blame CEOs for the financial meltdown scandals: 69
Percentage of Americans who believe that U.S. Muslims should have to carry special I.D.: 39
Every day more money is printed for The Monopoly Game than by the US Treasury
City with the highest per capita viewership of television evangelists: Washington DC
Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
Social networking site usage grew 88 percent among Internet users aged 55-64 between April 2009 and May 2010
Indonesia has the second largest population on Facebook
Today, the U.S already borrows 42 cents of every dollar spent.
U.S. food prices, are up 34% in the last year, as wages remained stagnant--according to The Economist.
37 out of 44 airports built between 2005 and 2010 have been built in sparsely populated west China.
AND THEN THERE’S JUST…
POFT: PLAIN OLD FASHIONED TRIVIA
No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, and purple.
Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.
Only food that does not spoil: honey (Ed. note -- also only food that does not need to be digested; it's already been digested in the body of the bee)
First novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer.
Watermelons in Japan are genetically modified to grow square...for better stacking.
Texas is the only state that is allowed to fly its state flag at the same height as the U.S. flag.
Pinocchio is Italian for "pine head."
Only animal besides human that can get sunburn: pig
The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.
FLYER SEEN POSTED ON BULLETIN BOARD OF LOCAL RESTAURANT:
Tired of cleaning yourself? Let me do it.
THE CONTINUING SEARCH FOR MUSICAL GEMS IN ODD PLACES ....
I introduced my son Will to Clifford's music with the classic Clifford Brown/Max Roach quintet album when Will was about 14 years old. He loved the song "Joy Spring" so much he asked his teacher to help him learn it...and meanwhile I learned the chord changes so we could play it together. Will learned the tricky head, which to this day I've still not mastered. I never saw any film or video of Clifford taken during his brief career (he died in a car crash at the age of 25) so this for me is a particularly moving discovery, though the video is bad and the sound not much better...but Clifford's genius still comes through.
CLIFFORD BROWN ON SOUPY SALES.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
NEW HOUSE FOR SIX IN STIX PIX
Excitement all around as we all begin to realize that the pile of lumber is actually turning into an abode.
...windows look small to me, but I guess it'll hold the heat better. It's all about convincing yourself that however it's turning out is ok, cause the only other option is to make changes that would cost a bundle, and that's out of the question...totally.
...for instance, this is the outdoor shower, which I thought would be set closer to ground level, but here it is at deck level and I, uh, ummm, guess it's ok.
...kinda looks like one of those post-war baby boom suburban development homes...maybe I'll go back to school on The G.I. Bill.
Ah nature, like the poets I wax
You’re my guide and I follow your tracks
Without you I am lost
So I’m paying the cost
Which is arm and a leg plus the tax
OMG! OMG! Slowly, first chapter by chapter, then paragraph by paragraph, until near the end it was line by line—did I finally reach the conclusion of the tale of The Whale. I’ve spoken enough already of it, but thought I’d mention a particular item. In chapter 132, I suddenly come across this:
"Oh, my Captain! my Captain! noble soul! grand old heart, after all! why should any one give chase to that hated fish! Away with me! let us fly these deadly waters! let us home! Wife and child, too, are Starbuck's--wife and child of his brotherly, sisterly, play-fellow youth; even as thine, sir, are the wife and child of thy loving, paternal old age! Away! let us away!”
Wait a minute!? Did he really say “…Oh my captain! my Captain”?
That’s Whitman! The famous poem about Lincoln…written after Lincoln’s assassination…which occurred 14 years after Melville published Moby Dick!
And Whitman named the poem Oh Captain, my Captain!
A poem that also includes these words: “But O heart! heart! heart!”…echos of Melville’s earlier "God! God! God!--crack my heart!” --no, not the same words, but the single word repeated three times with exclamation points after each and the centerpiece of a Heart. And Melville’s line occurs very close to the “Oh Captain” line….
So it’s off to the web I go to find out more…and thar she blows!
Whitman did indeed summon up the muse of Melville and echo his mighty words and rhythms in his famous poem. But none but the scholar and careful reader have noticed, I don’t remember any teachers giving Melville his due here, nor have I found anyone in my cursory Melville criticism readings who give credit where credit is due in this regard. Oh Herman, Oh Herman…!
Freakonomics and Obama Agonistes.
As you enter a movie theater, you realize you've lost your ticket. It’s gone, and the theater management isn’t buying your story and won’t let you in. Would you buy another $10 ticket?
Okay, now, rather than having lost your ticket, let’s say you lost a $10 bill on the way to the theater. Would you still go ahead and buy a $10 ticket?
In a famous economic behavior study under 50% said they would buy another ticket in the first scenario, and 90% said they would in the second.
But in both cases, the loss was $10. So obviously, perception and emotion trumps logic right? Duh. But i thought it was interesting to read how good policy trumped politics and then backfired on the administration when they instituted a middle class tax break that made economic sense, but backfired due to behavioral habits and perception--proving that even when you think you understand freakonomics, things can still get freakier.
if you're curious about the details...check out:
http://www.businessweek.com/printer/magazine/behavioral-economics-foils-an-obama-tax-cut-11102011.html
GREAT MUSIC ARTISTS IN MOVIES CONT.
This is obviously some kind of documentary, but of the kind where they feel they have to create atmosphere with added visual gimmicks and set-ups...but hey, it's Django and Stephane and for those of you who didn't know, Django had the use of only two fingers in his left hand--he lost the others in a fire when he was a child.
Excitement all around as we all begin to realize that the pile of lumber is actually turning into an abode.
...windows look small to me, but I guess it'll hold the heat better. It's all about convincing yourself that however it's turning out is ok, cause the only other option is to make changes that would cost a bundle, and that's out of the question...totally. 
...for instance, this is the outdoor shower, which I thought would be set closer to ground level, but here it is at deck level and I, uh, ummm, guess it's ok.
...kinda looks like one of those post-war baby boom suburban development homes...maybe I'll go back to school on The G.I. Bill.
Ah nature, like the poets I wax
You’re my guide and I follow your tracks
Without you I am lost
So I’m paying the cost
Which is arm and a leg plus the tax
OMG! OMG! Slowly, first chapter by chapter, then paragraph by paragraph, until near the end it was line by line—did I finally reach the conclusion of the tale of The Whale. I’ve spoken enough already of it, but thought I’d mention a particular item. In chapter 132, I suddenly come across this:
"Oh, my Captain! my Captain! noble soul! grand old heart, after all! why should any one give chase to that hated fish! Away with me! let us fly these deadly waters! let us home! Wife and child, too, are Starbuck's--wife and child of his brotherly, sisterly, play-fellow youth; even as thine, sir, are the wife and child of thy loving, paternal old age! Away! let us away!”
Wait a minute!? Did he really say “…Oh my captain! my Captain”? That’s Whitman! The famous poem about Lincoln…written after Lincoln’s assassination…which occurred 14 years after Melville published Moby Dick!
And Whitman named the poem Oh Captain, my Captain!
A poem that also includes these words: “But O heart! heart! heart!”…echos of Melville’s earlier "God! God! God!--crack my heart!” --no, not the same words, but the single word repeated three times with exclamation points after each and the centerpiece of a Heart. And Melville’s line occurs very close to the “Oh Captain” line….
So it’s off to the web I go to find out more…and thar she blows!
Whitman did indeed summon up the muse of Melville and echo his mighty words and rhythms in his famous poem. But none but the scholar and careful reader have noticed, I don’t remember any teachers giving Melville his due here, nor have I found anyone in my cursory Melville criticism readings who give credit where credit is due in this regard. Oh Herman, Oh Herman…!
Freakonomics and Obama Agonistes.
As you enter a movie theater, you realize you've lost your ticket. It’s gone, and the theater management isn’t buying your story and won’t let you in. Would you buy another $10 ticket?
Okay, now, rather than having lost your ticket, let’s say you lost a $10 bill on the way to the theater. Would you still go ahead and buy a $10 ticket?
In a famous economic behavior study under 50% said they would buy another ticket in the first scenario, and 90% said they would in the second.
But in both cases, the loss was $10. So obviously, perception and emotion trumps logic right? Duh. But i thought it was interesting to read how good policy trumped politics and then backfired on the administration when they instituted a middle class tax break that made economic sense, but backfired due to behavioral habits and perception--proving that even when you think you understand freakonomics, things can still get freakier.
if you're curious about the details...check out:
http://www.businessweek.com/printer/magazine/behavioral-economics-foils-an-obama-tax-cut-11102011.html
GREAT MUSIC ARTISTS IN MOVIES CONT.
This is obviously some kind of documentary, but of the kind where they feel they have to create atmosphere with added visual gimmicks and set-ups...but hey, it's Django and Stephane and for those of you who didn't know, Django had the use of only two fingers in his left hand--he lost the others in a fire when he was a child.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
A BIRTHDAY PRESENT FILLED MORNING, A VISIT FROM A FELLOW DRIFTER, AND A REPORT ON YESTERDAY’S SONG SILLINESS.
Today, the drifter officially became one year older than he was yesterday. Funny, but to him it only feels like a day.
Ellen and Will showered me with gifts this morning, and I was especially honored by Will’s willingness to arise from his slumbers at such an unprecedented hour. I got two, count ‘em, two bottles of premium Tequila, which is either their way of saying they think I ought to drink more, or it’s just a sign that my taste for the distilled Agave is not so problematic as to incline them to refrain from being my enablers. Along with the booze was a brand new original collage that Ellen created consisting of pages from Moby Dick, music scores,crossword puzzles and other elements lifted from the Drifter’s world of enthusiasms…and that’s not all, wait there’s more!!! I got two books, one being a Roz Chast collection called Things I hate From A to Z and the other…damn, can’t recall now, never heard of it, but Ellen did research and assures me it’s a winner.
And the pile still wasn’t depleted, I also received a new pair of house slippers to replace the ones I’ve been wearing since the Nixon years, a soft, warm flannel shirt, wool socks and last but not least (gee, I hope I’m not forgetting anything) a hand painted card from Ellen of a vase and flowers that I think (despite her humility) is as beautifully rendered as the hundreds of similar ones she’s produced over the years.
Ok, enough about me…now how about something from the Macho Man himself.
INTRODUCING AOD’S VERY FIRST GUEST APPEARANCE.
After many futile attempts to crack the code of the Blogspot COMMENT function, Marty has written to me with a request to post what follows below--which includes re-posting of song video featured back in Sept. And I am not only happy to comply with his request, I am hopeful that it might spur others to do the same since I’m beginning to feel the onset of writer’s block coming on and it was my hope from the beginning of this digital adventure that the blog would be a platform for all sorts of contributions from all walks of Drifters and Drifter followers.
AND NOT ONLY IS MARTY THE FIRST GUEST BUT I THINK HE'S SETTING THE BAR PRETTY HIGH FOR OTHERS WHO ASPIRE TO USE THIS SPACE FOR THE SOULFUL EXPRESSION OF PERSONAL MEMORY AND EXPERIENCE.
So….take it away….MARTY!
I was all of 11 and this song spoke my language to me, having an eternity of bliss and losing it the next moment. What could be sweeter and more painful. I remember Denise- there was a song for her as well (Oh Denise, shooby doo / I'm in love with you, Denise shooby doo) ) , Carnarsie, 101st street Seaview Village next door neighbor, playing hiding-go-seek, late warm,muggy summer nights, my terry cloth shirt and did I feel on top of the world.
Actually reminds me of a girl in third grade Susan, (maybe that's why that first song stays with me) little blond cutey pie who I accidentally tripped during recess, Oy veh what mortification. I should not neglect my 1st grade teacher, Ms, I mean Miss Siegel. Dreams of sitting on her lap. Early experiences leading to a senior thesis analyzing the similarities and differences between being alone, isolation, alienation and loneliness.
Ah those things we feel so young and revisit as adolescents, are part of us forever, right now, at this moment.
The unconscious knows no time and nothing is lost. Respond to every moment with every part of us. Is that what a peak experience is about? Wait I think I am having one now, which upon reflection is lost Well it was a moment.
Speaking of ryhmes and words. The other day from my driftwood writer called me Macho Man. The initials MMM which my wife and two daughters gave me now stand for Macho Man Mart. What did the old MMM stand for Mad Man Mart. Why would they call me this?
THANKS MARTY…AND PLEASE COME AGAIN, ANYTIME.
And one more shout out to Macho Man Marty...
Marty continues to Rock the Casbah by solving all the mysteries and conundrums appearing on the estimates and bills coming from our contractor. Glad it’s him and not me cause I couldn’t do it half as well, and I would probably lose my patience and temper after spotting one wrong detail let alone the dozen or so Marty’s identified so far. But Marty works full time like the rest of us and I think he could use a break…and though I’ve offered to spell him for some of these chores, the group seems to prefer (and wisely, considering what they know about my temperament) that he soldier on and keep up the good fight without complicating matters with an out of tune second fiddle.
UPDATE ON NON-LEXICAL VOCABLES.
As expected (and predicted) my annoyingly youthful creative comrades came up with song after song from band after band as yours truly sat in bewildered silence trying desperately to identify something or someone familiar. A couple of Police songs and classics from Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and The Kinks rang a bell and maybe a few others. But I had a blast listening to them with their competitive juices flowing as they rattled off one after the other, and my job was to find it online so they could all sing along when the non-lexical vocable came along. And then the editing suite was awash with the most awful out of tune wailing anyone’s ever heard this side of Sonny Bono and Madonna. I left early as they continued one-upping each other and filling the (thankfully) sound-proofed room with their discordant revels.
Today, the drifter officially became one year older than he was yesterday. Funny, but to him it only feels like a day.
Ellen and Will showered me with gifts this morning, and I was especially honored by Will’s willingness to arise from his slumbers at such an unprecedented hour. I got two, count ‘em, two bottles of premium Tequila, which is either their way of saying they think I ought to drink more, or it’s just a sign that my taste for the distilled Agave is not so problematic as to incline them to refrain from being my enablers. Along with the booze was a brand new original collage that Ellen created consisting of pages from Moby Dick, music scores,crossword puzzles and other elements lifted from the Drifter’s world of enthusiasms…and that’s not all, wait there’s more!!! I got two books, one being a Roz Chast collection called Things I hate From A to Z and the other…damn, can’t recall now, never heard of it, but Ellen did research and assures me it’s a winner.
And the pile still wasn’t depleted, I also received a new pair of house slippers to replace the ones I’ve been wearing since the Nixon years, a soft, warm flannel shirt, wool socks and last but not least (gee, I hope I’m not forgetting anything) a hand painted card from Ellen of a vase and flowers that I think (despite her humility) is as beautifully rendered as the hundreds of similar ones she’s produced over the years.
Ok, enough about me…now how about something from the Macho Man himself.
INTRODUCING AOD’S VERY FIRST GUEST APPEARANCE.
After many futile attempts to crack the code of the Blogspot COMMENT function, Marty has written to me with a request to post what follows below--which includes re-posting of song video featured back in Sept. And I am not only happy to comply with his request, I am hopeful that it might spur others to do the same since I’m beginning to feel the onset of writer’s block coming on and it was my hope from the beginning of this digital adventure that the blog would be a platform for all sorts of contributions from all walks of Drifters and Drifter followers.
AND NOT ONLY IS MARTY THE FIRST GUEST BUT I THINK HE'S SETTING THE BAR PRETTY HIGH FOR OTHERS WHO ASPIRE TO USE THIS SPACE FOR THE SOULFUL EXPRESSION OF PERSONAL MEMORY AND EXPERIENCE.
So….take it away….MARTY!
I was all of 11 and this song spoke my language to me, having an eternity of bliss and losing it the next moment. What could be sweeter and more painful. I remember Denise- there was a song for her as well (Oh Denise, shooby doo / I'm in love with you, Denise shooby doo) ) , Carnarsie, 101st street Seaview Village next door neighbor, playing hiding-go-seek, late warm,muggy summer nights, my terry cloth shirt and did I feel on top of the world.
Actually reminds me of a girl in third grade Susan, (maybe that's why that first song stays with me) little blond cutey pie who I accidentally tripped during recess, Oy veh what mortification. I should not neglect my 1st grade teacher, Ms, I mean Miss Siegel. Dreams of sitting on her lap. Early experiences leading to a senior thesis analyzing the similarities and differences between being alone, isolation, alienation and loneliness.
Ah those things we feel so young and revisit as adolescents, are part of us forever, right now, at this moment.
The unconscious knows no time and nothing is lost. Respond to every moment with every part of us. Is that what a peak experience is about? Wait I think I am having one now, which upon reflection is lost Well it was a moment.
Speaking of ryhmes and words. The other day from my driftwood writer called me Macho Man. The initials MMM which my wife and two daughters gave me now stand for Macho Man Mart. What did the old MMM stand for Mad Man Mart. Why would they call me this?
THANKS MARTY…AND PLEASE COME AGAIN, ANYTIME.
And one more shout out to Macho Man Marty...
Marty continues to Rock the Casbah by solving all the mysteries and conundrums appearing on the estimates and bills coming from our contractor. Glad it’s him and not me cause I couldn’t do it half as well, and I would probably lose my patience and temper after spotting one wrong detail let alone the dozen or so Marty’s identified so far. But Marty works full time like the rest of us and I think he could use a break…and though I’ve offered to spell him for some of these chores, the group seems to prefer (and wisely, considering what they know about my temperament) that he soldier on and keep up the good fight without complicating matters with an out of tune second fiddle.
UPDATE ON NON-LEXICAL VOCABLES.
As expected (and predicted) my annoyingly youthful creative comrades came up with song after song from band after band as yours truly sat in bewildered silence trying desperately to identify something or someone familiar. A couple of Police songs and classics from Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and The Kinks rang a bell and maybe a few others. But I had a blast listening to them with their competitive juices flowing as they rattled off one after the other, and my job was to find it online so they could all sing along when the non-lexical vocable came along. And then the editing suite was awash with the most awful out of tune wailing anyone’s ever heard this side of Sonny Bono and Madonna. I left early as they continued one-upping each other and filling the (thankfully) sound-proofed room with their discordant revels.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
We’re talking non-lexical vocables today.
“A song doesn’t exist to convey the meaning of the words, the words exist to convey the meaning of the song.”
--Simon Frith
Nonsense words, syllables, sounds, meaningless refrains and choruses from songs is the theme.
And I just can’t wait to get to my next editing session so I can pick everyone’s brains on this…but my fear is that they’re all so young they’re gonna cite dozens of songs I never heard of and I’ll be sittin there reaffirming my antiquity with every one I come up with…so I’ll get them out now and maybe see what I can collect from them later.
I am the walrus, Coo coo, kachoo.
Doo-wah-diddy-diddy-dom-diddy-do
‘Da Doo Ron Ron Ron Da Doo Ron Ron
The Night they drove ole dixie down and all the people were singin
they went, nah-na-na-na-na-nah- na-na--na-na--na-na-na-na-nah….
Zip A Dee Do Da, Zip a dee day.
“A-wop-bop-a-loo-a-whop bam boo
Polly Wolly Doodle all de day.
"Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, life goes on, braaah
…the halls with boughs of holly, fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la
Do you remember when, we used to sing—
Sha la la la la la la-la la la la ti da.
Shimmy Shimmy Ko-Ko Bop,
Shimmy Shimmy Bop!
who put the bomp in the bomp ba bomp ba bom
who put the ram in the rama lama ding dong
Walla Walla Bing Bang
It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing
Do-wa-do-wa-do-wa-do-wa-do-wa-do-wa-do-wow.
B’daaa’ b’daa, b’daa, b’daa…daaaat’s all folks.
Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. Music is the best…
--Frank Zappa
Always get a kick out of those terrible old movies where for whatever reasons they carved out some time to feature a musical interlude or two featuring great artists, and suddenly the screen lights up for a few minutes before it’s back to the turgid little melodrama. If I find time, I’ll see if I can put together a collection of some of the best of those scenes…in meantime, here’s Louis and Billie, looking so young and fresh and perfect together. Billie sounds great on the first one, and the second one is kinda corny, but Louis can't do any wrong in my eyes and how sweet it is to see Billie smiling, laughing and looking so happy.
“A song doesn’t exist to convey the meaning of the words, the words exist to convey the meaning of the song.”
--Simon Frith
Nonsense words, syllables, sounds, meaningless refrains and choruses from songs is the theme.
And I just can’t wait to get to my next editing session so I can pick everyone’s brains on this…but my fear is that they’re all so young they’re gonna cite dozens of songs I never heard of and I’ll be sittin there reaffirming my antiquity with every one I come up with…so I’ll get them out now and maybe see what I can collect from them later.
I am the walrus, Coo coo, kachoo.
Doo-wah-diddy-diddy-dom-diddy-do
‘Da Doo Ron Ron Ron Da Doo Ron Ron
The Night they drove ole dixie down and all the people were singin
they went, nah-na-na-na-na-nah- na-na--na-na--na-na-na-na-nah….
Zip A Dee Do Da, Zip a dee day.
“A-wop-bop-a-loo-a-whop bam boo
Polly Wolly Doodle all de day.
"Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, life goes on, braaah
…the halls with boughs of holly, fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la
Do you remember when, we used to sing—
Sha la la la la la la-la la la la ti da.
Shimmy Shimmy Ko-Ko Bop,
Shimmy Shimmy Bop!
who put the bomp in the bomp ba bomp ba bom
who put the ram in the rama lama ding dong
Walla Walla Bing Bang
It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing
Do-wa-do-wa-do-wa-do-wa-do-wa-do-wa-do-wow.
B’daaa’ b’daa, b’daa, b’daa…daaaat’s all folks.
Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. Music is the best…
--Frank Zappa
Always get a kick out of those terrible old movies where for whatever reasons they carved out some time to feature a musical interlude or two featuring great artists, and suddenly the screen lights up for a few minutes before it’s back to the turgid little melodrama. If I find time, I’ll see if I can put together a collection of some of the best of those scenes…in meantime, here’s Louis and Billie, looking so young and fresh and perfect together. Billie sounds great on the first one, and the second one is kinda corny, but Louis can't do any wrong in my eyes and how sweet it is to see Billie smiling, laughing and looking so happy.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Marty Rocks! Will Shocks!
Just a quick shout-out to Marty for his vigilance and diligence in keeping our cash flow from flowing out to sea in what has become an endless stream of unforeseen (read: hidden, buried, subliminally subdivided) costs as we hit the home stretch (we hope) in this journey to vacation home bliss and penury. Marty has done the dirty work of checking and re-checking the balance sheet and spotted no less than a half-dozen irregularities that had he not been on the case would have emptied our thinning wallets even sooner than expected. As it is, we're already in the red and who knows where the ink will spread to next. I'm just hoping to be able to keep working for the next dozen or so years while being thankful that Debtor's prison is a thing of the past.
And here's Will at his most recent gig at Carolines. Actually, I'm not shocked (how can someone talking about anything be actually shocking?) but I like headlines that rhyme. Most interesting to me is that I don't know whether to think that he's a bit too preoccupied with sex, or whether it's just been so long since my libido ran my life that I've forgotten that there was a time when i too had little to say that wasn't in some way related to the erotic.
Just a quick shout-out to Marty for his vigilance and diligence in keeping our cash flow from flowing out to sea in what has become an endless stream of unforeseen (read: hidden, buried, subliminally subdivided) costs as we hit the home stretch (we hope) in this journey to vacation home bliss and penury. Marty has done the dirty work of checking and re-checking the balance sheet and spotted no less than a half-dozen irregularities that had he not been on the case would have emptied our thinning wallets even sooner than expected. As it is, we're already in the red and who knows where the ink will spread to next. I'm just hoping to be able to keep working for the next dozen or so years while being thankful that Debtor's prison is a thing of the past.
And here's Will at his most recent gig at Carolines. Actually, I'm not shocked (how can someone talking about anything be actually shocking?) but I like headlines that rhyme. Most interesting to me is that I don't know whether to think that he's a bit too preoccupied with sex, or whether it's just been so long since my libido ran my life that I've forgotten that there was a time when i too had little to say that wasn't in some way related to the erotic.
The cosmic joke.
Too bad Melville never got it.
My cousin Jonathan (thanks Jon) sent me this link
http://www.radioopensource.org/harold-blooms-melville/
It’s an audio download of Harold Bloom talking about Moby Dick and probably only of interest to the hardcore student or someone like me who’s fresh to the book. Though Bloom is a bit of a blowhard and snob for my taste, I give him props for the boost he gave to Falstaff as one of the great literary creations. The most interesting thing to me is that Bloom considers Melville and Whitman to be the two great towers in American Literature. And who am I to argue since unlike Bloom, I haven’t read everyone…but his opinion got me to thinking about how the one thing that links the two in my mind is the comic-- or, the presence of the comic in one and the absence of it in the other.
Whether it’s Melville or Chopin or Faulkner or Henry James or Wagner or Tolstoy…there’s always that one small pesky little fly buzzing round my head telling me that though I’m keeping company with a powerful mind and a profoundly deep soul, it is a mind sorely lacking in a sense of humor. Melville saw life’s comedy, but Whitman felt it.
To be fair, Moby Dick has some lively scenes full of mirth and comic invention…but it’s not Melville who’s doing the laughing. Just as Henry James has a few offbeat characters who exhibit some comic flair, but that flair doesn’t extend to the man penning the story. James is always serious.
And since I’m fresh off the boat with Melville, this has me pondering some mysteries all related in some way to the same issue of the value of a comic perspective. And since my son is now a working comedian, I’m inclined to ponder such things even more. It’s akin to the challenge I posed a few weeks back to my colleagues that was to finish the sentence: There are two kinds of people in the word….
And a possible answer could be: Those who see life as a Tragedy and those who see life as a Comedy.
Melville understood more than most would ever dream of understanding. And yet he went to his grave in a restless state of disillusion and disappointment. He was a desperate seeker for ultimate truths and though he had an intellect more than sufficient to tackle the biggest questions…he didn’t have what it took to acknowledge the ultimate (comic) futility of his quest. And to recognize the limits of one’s mortal powers requires a sense of the comic.
The great spiritual teachers often speak of cultivating an awareness of the ridiculous. The Koan is a story whose moral or answer is unreachable because it illustrates life’s essential ridiculousness. In Buddhism, the goal is to free oneself of desire…and that includes the desire to know more than is knowable.
So, much as I feel like Melville was one of the great soul brothers, it’s sad that he couldn’t lighten up a bit and embrace his inner holy fool. From what I’ve read, this fatal (at least career wise) flaw was the cause of his estrangement from his mentor and friend Nathaniel Hawthorne. Maurice Sendak (the great author and illustrator of Where The Wild Things are…et. Al) is a big Melville fan and considers him one of his three greatest influences, (The others being Mozart and German writer Heinrich Kleist) and in an interview he said that he cannot read Hawthorne because he is so angry at him for abandoning Melville.
The irony of the whole thing though, is that it takes an enormously strong, stubborn and confident ego to produce something like Moby Dick, or War and Peace, or Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and for the most part, a sense of humor is (except in rare cases ) poison to the ego.
Too bad Melville never got it.
My cousin Jonathan (thanks Jon) sent me this link
http://www.radioopensource.org/harold-blooms-melville/
It’s an audio download of Harold Bloom talking about Moby Dick and probably only of interest to the hardcore student or someone like me who’s fresh to the book. Though Bloom is a bit of a blowhard and snob for my taste, I give him props for the boost he gave to Falstaff as one of the great literary creations. The most interesting thing to me is that Bloom considers Melville and Whitman to be the two great towers in American Literature. And who am I to argue since unlike Bloom, I haven’t read everyone…but his opinion got me to thinking about how the one thing that links the two in my mind is the comic-- or, the presence of the comic in one and the absence of it in the other.
Whether it’s Melville or Chopin or Faulkner or Henry James or Wagner or Tolstoy…there’s always that one small pesky little fly buzzing round my head telling me that though I’m keeping company with a powerful mind and a profoundly deep soul, it is a mind sorely lacking in a sense of humor. Melville saw life’s comedy, but Whitman felt it.
To be fair, Moby Dick has some lively scenes full of mirth and comic invention…but it’s not Melville who’s doing the laughing. Just as Henry James has a few offbeat characters who exhibit some comic flair, but that flair doesn’t extend to the man penning the story. James is always serious.
And since I’m fresh off the boat with Melville, this has me pondering some mysteries all related in some way to the same issue of the value of a comic perspective. And since my son is now a working comedian, I’m inclined to ponder such things even more. It’s akin to the challenge I posed a few weeks back to my colleagues that was to finish the sentence: There are two kinds of people in the word….
And a possible answer could be: Those who see life as a Tragedy and those who see life as a Comedy.
Melville understood more than most would ever dream of understanding. And yet he went to his grave in a restless state of disillusion and disappointment. He was a desperate seeker for ultimate truths and though he had an intellect more than sufficient to tackle the biggest questions…he didn’t have what it took to acknowledge the ultimate (comic) futility of his quest. And to recognize the limits of one’s mortal powers requires a sense of the comic.
The great spiritual teachers often speak of cultivating an awareness of the ridiculous. The Koan is a story whose moral or answer is unreachable because it illustrates life’s essential ridiculousness. In Buddhism, the goal is to free oneself of desire…and that includes the desire to know more than is knowable.
So, much as I feel like Melville was one of the great soul brothers, it’s sad that he couldn’t lighten up a bit and embrace his inner holy fool. From what I’ve read, this fatal (at least career wise) flaw was the cause of his estrangement from his mentor and friend Nathaniel Hawthorne. Maurice Sendak (the great author and illustrator of Where The Wild Things are…et. Al) is a big Melville fan and considers him one of his three greatest influences, (The others being Mozart and German writer Heinrich Kleist) and in an interview he said that he cannot read Hawthorne because he is so angry at him for abandoning Melville.
The irony of the whole thing though, is that it takes an enormously strong, stubborn and confident ego to produce something like Moby Dick, or War and Peace, or Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and for the most part, a sense of humor is (except in rare cases ) poison to the ego.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree;
And only God who makes the tree
Also makes the fools like me.
But only fools like me, you see,
Can make a God, who makes a tree.
E.Y. (Yip) Harburg ---Lyricist for many great songs: “ Brother can you spare a Dime”, “Over the Rainbow”....
HAPPY WEEKEND
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Just when you thought it was safe to return to AOD without risking another out on a Limb-Rick encounter...
Junkies don't reform easily, and I'm discovering that of all the word-play substance abuse I've indulged, the limerick is the toughest habit to kick. So taking a tip from Oscar Wilde, I'm dealing with temptation in the only way one can--by yielding to it.
So, four end of day odes in honor of Mr. Melville and the book that needs no further introduction.
We search and we drill and we frack
for that without which we would lack
means to drive or get heat
we’d be cold on our feet
and again stabbing whales in the back
The leviathan sprang from the deep
Taking Ahab’s leg off in one sweep
Cetological plotting?
Not at all, simply swatting
Like at flies buzzing round as you sleep
Once when curious I’d get my fix
From thesauri and Encycs and Dicts.
To those I would go
When I just had to know
Now I just find it all with some clicks.
All I need is a tuna on rye
And some time to kiss e-mail goodbye
don’t you knock on my door
for an hour or more
I’m with Moby on seas running high.
Junkies don't reform easily, and I'm discovering that of all the word-play substance abuse I've indulged, the limerick is the toughest habit to kick. So taking a tip from Oscar Wilde, I'm dealing with temptation in the only way one can--by yielding to it.
So, four end of day odes in honor of Mr. Melville and the book that needs no further introduction.
We search and we drill and we frack
for that without which we would lack
means to drive or get heat
we’d be cold on our feet
and again stabbing whales in the back
The leviathan sprang from the deep
Taking Ahab’s leg off in one sweep
Cetological plotting?
Not at all, simply swatting
Like at flies buzzing round as you sleep
Once when curious I’d get my fix
From thesauri and Encycs and Dicts.
To those I would go
When I just had to know
Now I just find it all with some clicks.
All I need is a tuna on rye
And some time to kiss e-mail goodbye
don’t you knock on my door
for an hour or more
I’m with Moby on seas running high.
Melville's masterpiece, contains within its pages "nothing less than the genetic code of America."
I think I touched on this in an earlier post, but one of the uncanny things about Melville’s accomplishment is how he manages to maintain the momentum of the narrative while at the same time interrupting it with frequent, often long, scientific, historical, philosophical, and poetic dissertations on practically everything having to do with the life, history and business of whaling. From what I’ve read, he was somewhat innovative in this regard though few readers or critics at the time were pleased by it or appreciated the value of this approach.
But for the modern reader, it seems positively prescient since it mimics the way we now interact with information and culture. I am constantly going to the internet to search for more information about things I discover in books, music, film, news. And in 1851 Melville is doing that for his readers, except without the benefit of the internet.
No sooner does he mention that a certain specie of whale has less commercial value than another—he’s off and running with a detailed and technical review of every kind of whale in the sea supported by a mountain of facts and anecdotes. As a reader, you’re free to take in as much of this material as suits your curiosity, or you can move on and get back to the drama of the tale.
The chapter headings are frequent and detailed and going from one to the other is easy. But the coup de grace for me is the editorializing along the way…in Ishmael’s voice, which is one of the sweetest and most sensitive in literature. Ishmael is both mortal and saint…he’s flesh and blood and at the same time a philosophic all seeing eye channeling the wisdom of the ages and the cosmos.
I give you an example below. Here, we learn about the rule of law at sea as it applies to whale ownership.
Yes; these laws might be engraven on a Queen Anne's farthing, or the barb of a harpoon, and worn round the neck, so small are they.
I. A Fast-Fish belongs to the party fast to it. (MY NOTE: FAST HERE MEANS “FASTENED” )
II. A Loose-Fish is fair game for anybody who can soonest catch it.
But if the doctrine of Fast-Fish be pretty generally applicable, the kindred doctrine of Loose-Fish is still more widely so. That is internationally and universally applicable.
What was America in 1492 but a Loose-Fish, in which Columbus struck the Spanish standard by way of wailing it for his royal master and mistress? What was Poland to the Czar? What Greece to the Turk? What India to England? What at last will Mexico be to the United States? All Loose-Fish.
What are the Rights of Man and the Liberties of the World but Loose-Fish? What all men's minds and opinions but Loose-Fish? What is the principle of religious belief in them but a Loose-Fish? What to the ostentatious smuggling verbalists are the thoughts of thinkers but Loose-Fish? What is the great globe itself but a Loose-Fish? And what are you, reader, but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too?
I think I touched on this in an earlier post, but one of the uncanny things about Melville’s accomplishment is how he manages to maintain the momentum of the narrative while at the same time interrupting it with frequent, often long, scientific, historical, philosophical, and poetic dissertations on practically everything having to do with the life, history and business of whaling. From what I’ve read, he was somewhat innovative in this regard though few readers or critics at the time were pleased by it or appreciated the value of this approach.
But for the modern reader, it seems positively prescient since it mimics the way we now interact with information and culture. I am constantly going to the internet to search for more information about things I discover in books, music, film, news. And in 1851 Melville is doing that for his readers, except without the benefit of the internet.
No sooner does he mention that a certain specie of whale has less commercial value than another—he’s off and running with a detailed and technical review of every kind of whale in the sea supported by a mountain of facts and anecdotes. As a reader, you’re free to take in as much of this material as suits your curiosity, or you can move on and get back to the drama of the tale.
The chapter headings are frequent and detailed and going from one to the other is easy. But the coup de grace for me is the editorializing along the way…in Ishmael’s voice, which is one of the sweetest and most sensitive in literature. Ishmael is both mortal and saint…he’s flesh and blood and at the same time a philosophic all seeing eye channeling the wisdom of the ages and the cosmos.
I give you an example below. Here, we learn about the rule of law at sea as it applies to whale ownership.
Yes; these laws might be engraven on a Queen Anne's farthing, or the barb of a harpoon, and worn round the neck, so small are they.
I. A Fast-Fish belongs to the party fast to it. (MY NOTE: FAST HERE MEANS “FASTENED” )
II. A Loose-Fish is fair game for anybody who can soonest catch it.
But if the doctrine of Fast-Fish be pretty generally applicable, the kindred doctrine of Loose-Fish is still more widely so. That is internationally and universally applicable.
What was America in 1492 but a Loose-Fish, in which Columbus struck the Spanish standard by way of wailing it for his royal master and mistress? What was Poland to the Czar? What Greece to the Turk? What India to England? What at last will Mexico be to the United States? All Loose-Fish.
What are the Rights of Man and the Liberties of the World but Loose-Fish? What all men's minds and opinions but Loose-Fish? What is the principle of religious belief in them but a Loose-Fish? What to the ostentatious smuggling verbalists are the thoughts of thinkers but Loose-Fish? What is the great globe itself but a Loose-Fish? And what are you, reader, but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too?
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Challenge of the day, courtesy of my editor...
who maintains that there are complex mathematical factors involved here, but it's all beyond me. So as you ponder (or choose to ignore) this foolishness, scroll down to see what other readers submitted in response to the following:
Suppose you’re on a game show, and you’re given a choice of three doors. Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door — say, No. 1 — and the host, who knows what’s behind the doors, opens another door — say, No. 3 — which has a goat. He then says to you, "Do you want to change to door #2?
Do you stick with door #1 or do you switch? And is there an advantage either way?
reader responses below....
I would already know where the car is because the host and I would probably have met earlier in the green room and I’m sure once he got to know me he would tell me. --Sarah Palin
I wouldn’t really worry too much about it since I don’t need a car.
--George Bush.
Opening doors is what I do--doors to opportunity, doors to equality, doors to justice. I would do what’s right and expect the host to do the same with respect for me as a human being and a representative of a community of hard working citizens who need more cars…not more goats.
–Rev. Al Sharpton
It would not matter. The value of a car is only greater than the value of a goat if you choose to believe that it is. To have a goat can be the greater blessing, especially for one who lives where there are very bad roads. --The Dalai Lama
I would question why I even wanted to be on this stupid show in the first place and wonder how I even got there and then I would be overcome with anxiety and panic. I would break out into hives and …did you say goat or coat? I could use a new coat. -- Woody Allen
I have so much love in my heart for anyone who has to face difficult choices in their lives. I’ve had my share of tough choices and I think in this situation I would consider what I have learned from my past and simply offer to buy the car from the producers of the show so I could perhaps pass it along to someone who has not been as fortunate in life as I have been.
---Oprah Winfrey
Yeah, I’m gettin down with your door #1 door. And then I’ll get down with your door#2 door. I’ll get down with that goat too if she knows how to get down. HEY GOAT! Do you know how to get down? Haaaaah…you just, just, just can’t stop me … and I just can’t help myself… HIT ME! Heyahhhh ha!.
--James Brown
Winners always make the right choice because they understand that winning is all about making the other guy make the tough choices. If you think like a winner and act like a winner you will have all the cars and goats you want. And if I chose the door with the goat you can bet it’s because I wanted that goat, and I was willing to do what was necessary to get it. --Donald Trump
who maintains that there are complex mathematical factors involved here, but it's all beyond me. So as you ponder (or choose to ignore) this foolishness, scroll down to see what other readers submitted in response to the following:
Suppose you’re on a game show, and you’re given a choice of three doors. Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door — say, No. 1 — and the host, who knows what’s behind the doors, opens another door — say, No. 3 — which has a goat. He then says to you, "Do you want to change to door #2?
Do you stick with door #1 or do you switch? And is there an advantage either way?
reader responses below....
I would already know where the car is because the host and I would probably have met earlier in the green room and I’m sure once he got to know me he would tell me. --Sarah Palin
I wouldn’t really worry too much about it since I don’t need a car.
--George Bush.
Opening doors is what I do--doors to opportunity, doors to equality, doors to justice. I would do what’s right and expect the host to do the same with respect for me as a human being and a representative of a community of hard working citizens who need more cars…not more goats.
–Rev. Al Sharpton
It would not matter. The value of a car is only greater than the value of a goat if you choose to believe that it is. To have a goat can be the greater blessing, especially for one who lives where there are very bad roads. --The Dalai Lama
I would question why I even wanted to be on this stupid show in the first place and wonder how I even got there and then I would be overcome with anxiety and panic. I would break out into hives and …did you say goat or coat? I could use a new coat. -- Woody Allen
I have so much love in my heart for anyone who has to face difficult choices in their lives. I’ve had my share of tough choices and I think in this situation I would consider what I have learned from my past and simply offer to buy the car from the producers of the show so I could perhaps pass it along to someone who has not been as fortunate in life as I have been.
---Oprah Winfrey
Yeah, I’m gettin down with your door #1 door. And then I’ll get down with your door#2 door. I’ll get down with that goat too if she knows how to get down. HEY GOAT! Do you know how to get down? Haaaaah…you just, just, just can’t stop me … and I just can’t help myself… HIT ME! Heyahhhh ha!.
--James Brown
Winners always make the right choice because they understand that winning is all about making the other guy make the tough choices. If you think like a winner and act like a winner you will have all the cars and goats you want. And if I chose the door with the goat you can bet it’s because I wanted that goat, and I was willing to do what was necessary to get it. --Donald Trump
I'm writing em in meetings
I'm writing em in my head
I'm writing em in my bed
I'm writing em on the train
Just call me out on a Limb-Rick.
Oh the pundits all sing the same song
On the tube, on the web all day long
He promised us hope
Now it seems he can’t cope
What’s right isn’t news. Just what’s wrong
It’s broken, it’s shot, and it’s failed
The complainers and whiners all railed
But the one’s charged to fix it
Only hear “No…we nix it”
All the ships with wise captains have sailed
“They’re crooks and dishonest!” Well, duh?
“They’ve grabbed all the dough!” Yeah, uh huh.
“They’re sharks!” That may be.
“They don’t care.” I agree.
“Think it’s funny?” I do, ha ha ha.
When String theory came down the pike
Like guitar strings they said, as you strike
They said big rubbers bands
They said infinite strands
Seems they never metaphor they didn’t like.
The Zuccotti team looks all the same
College Grads, mostly white, suburb tame
But working class folk
Think they’re mostly a joke
They just want to get into the game.
The gamers on Wall St. contended
No harm and no foul was intended
For if crime didn’t pay
Why would anyone play?
As for rules, they’re just there to be bended.
In searching for food continental
He Googled and almost went mental
Finding hotels and airlines
And receding hair lines
And cures for all aches and pains dental.
I'm writing em in my head
I'm writing em in my bed
I'm writing em on the train
Just call me out on a Limb-Rick.
Oh the pundits all sing the same song
On the tube, on the web all day long
He promised us hope
Now it seems he can’t cope
What’s right isn’t news. Just what’s wrong
It’s broken, it’s shot, and it’s failed
The complainers and whiners all railed
But the one’s charged to fix it
Only hear “No…we nix it”
All the ships with wise captains have sailed
“They’re crooks and dishonest!” Well, duh?
“They’ve grabbed all the dough!” Yeah, uh huh.
“They’re sharks!” That may be.
“They don’t care.” I agree.
“Think it’s funny?” I do, ha ha ha.
When String theory came down the pike
Like guitar strings they said, as you strike
They said big rubbers bands
They said infinite strands
Seems they never metaphor they didn’t like.
The Zuccotti team looks all the same
College Grads, mostly white, suburb tame
But working class folk
Think they’re mostly a joke
They just want to get into the game.
The gamers on Wall St. contended
No harm and no foul was intended
For if crime didn’t pay
Why would anyone play?
As for rules, they’re just there to be bended.
In searching for food continental
He Googled and almost went mental
Finding hotels and airlines
And receding hair lines
And cures for all aches and pains dental.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Tuesday is Bonus Limericks Day*
* Another way of saying I can't stop writing these things, but if I post em I might be able to convince myself to go cold-turkey...at least till tomorrow.
Line by line it’s a natural fact
That Limericks though ultracompact
Can with care and concision
Turn a flair for derision
into rudeness that sounds just like tact
Two scrabblers named Chloe and Lydia
Were like two walking encyclopedia
One day Chloe got syphilis
"Triple word score!" "Ridiculous."
Then she calmly changed lam to chlamydia
A Blogger was acting erratical
All day long he was Limerick fanatical
“Take a break or you’ll crack”
Said his wife in the sack
“What you need’s a syllabic sabbatical.”
* Another way of saying I can't stop writing these things, but if I post em I might be able to convince myself to go cold-turkey...at least till tomorrow.
Line by line it’s a natural fact
That Limericks though ultracompact
Can with care and concision
Turn a flair for derision
into rudeness that sounds just like tact
Two scrabblers named Chloe and Lydia
Were like two walking encyclopedia
One day Chloe got syphilis
"Triple word score!" "Ridiculous."
Then she calmly changed lam to chlamydia
A Blogger was acting erratical
All day long he was Limerick fanatical
“Take a break or you’ll crack”
Said his wife in the sack
“What you need’s a syllabic sabbatical.”
When weary of news analytical
Based on rumor and gossip too cynical
Say “Adieu to the Times”
And, “Bonjour to the Rhymes”
Where the news fit to print is so Limerickal
I thought I'd try my hand at combining a trio of favorite things:
Found internet images
Random news stories
Limericks.*
and put it all together like a children's book.
Hope you kids enjoy.
What with Perry and Cain all a’crashian.
And that Mormon all splishin and splashian.
Ya gotta be thinkin
What’s the GOP drinkin?
And who’s next? That car crash Kardashian?
.
Money is funny and strangerous.
In your pocket it’s only loose changerous.
But when transferred to paper
It can turn into vapor
And kill like CO—stuff is dangerous.
P.T. Barnum knew all about Hokum.Folks will swallow whatever don’t choke’em.
Some may call you a crook
But it’s only a hook
So they’ll laugh as you scam’em and soak’em
De Kooning sure knew
how to draw it.
But “Art” ain’t for folks
who adore it.
So he went to extremes
Painting demons from dreams
And got critics to say:
“I abhor it”.
Everyone’s greedy, no crime.
Like me
who can’t get enuf rhyme.
But even a poet
Knows too much, and you’ll blow it
Hogs get slaughtered
(not pigs)
every time.
They’re gathered downtown
in Zuccotti.
With a beef bout the haves
and have notti.
Now with two Port-a-Sans
They’re working on plans
To start a political Potty.
*apologies to the purists for taking liberties with line breaks...
Monday, November 7, 2011
RIDDLE ME THIS...All questions were supplied and randomly chosen by an independent and unpaid agency, any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental albeit uncannily so. 1. Six people buy a house together. Three are men, three are women. The women are all concerned about how the house will look. The men are all concerned about how much the house will cost. So who chooses the kitchen countertops?
2. In August, an excavator/septic specialist tells his client that installing a new septic system will cost $1,700. In September he says it will cost $6,000. In October he says it will cost $3,700. In November he says it will cost $2,750. Another specialist says the job will cost $60,000.00 How much does a new septic system actually cost?
3. A group of people want to buy a house in the country. After looking at many houses they choose the one that is only a hundred yards from a beautiful quiet bay...so how big a pool should they build in the backyard?
4. You are driving from Mamaroneck NY to Springs NY –a distance of approx. 100 miles. Assuming you get in your car on a Friday evening in mid-July at 7pm, how many hours past midnight will you arrive at your destination?
5. You and your spouse can't decide whether to put your savings into a long term conservative money market, or invest it in high yield but high risk stocks. So you:
a. split it 50-50 between the two
b. ask a financial professional to help you
c. Go to Vegas to try your new Blackjack card counting skills
d. Give it to a building contractor you've never met.
6. A married man with a nice job, nice wife, nice children and a nice house wakes up one day to discover that he now has two houses. How long will his “nice” situation last?
7. There are 32 brands of ceiling fans. Each brand features an average of 78 different models. For each model there is an average of 8 different styles. How long will it take to choose a ceiling fan?
8. A man and a woman are married 28 years. In the 28th year they buy a vacation home in the country with two other couples. This proves that:
a. You get wiser as you get older
b. You get dumber as you get older.
c. You're never too old to act irresponsibly.
d. Some people live and learn, while others just live.
9. When you look at the picture above, your first thought is:
a. How sad.
b. Hope they had insurance.
c. Is that what I look like in Denim shorts?
d. Wonder how much they’re asking for it.
Odds and Ends from De Kooning to De-nial.
De Kooning retrospective at MOMA. So I accompany Ellen—and I say “accompany” cause it would not occur to me to check it out unless urged to by another, and if that another is my wife I am then more inclined to join in if for no other reason than to have some common experience to share thoughts/memories of and inject some variety into our more pedestrian daily routine.
She really liked it. She appreciates the color and dynamic use and interaction of shape and form –and since she is now studying collage, it was of particular interest to her to see how De Kooning combines so many different elements in a single canvas. And I can see what she’s responding to and appreciate it as well in a formal fashion. But I was unmoved by most of it—except the work he did in his teens and in his dotage. When it comes to visual art, I’m ignorant of the technical issues involved and I pretty much respond to it on simple grounds of personal taste.
“The Ultimate Rule ought to be: 'If it sounds GOOD to you, it's bitchin'; if it sounds BAD to YOU, it's shitty…”
Frank Zappa
With De Kooning, I just don’t sense anything beautiful or pleasing in the work. What is depicted as an interpretation of nature doesn’t seem natural and what is depicted as humanity doesn’t appear human. It’s actually kind of a grotesque vision of humanity to my eyes. All that color and all that cubism geometry and nothing looks really alive or organic.
The show is huge and I can’t look at more than a few dozen paintings before running out of attentiveness and focus. So after giving a few select canvases my full consideration I began wandering around the rooms looking at the people. What I saw was a lot of studious faces mixed with those who just look like people who always check out the hot art show in town. What I didn’t see in any of the faces was pleasure or engagement. I didn’t see what I saw at the Matisse Show, which was a sense of wonder and even a kind of gratitude. Not that art can’t also spark fires of other emotions less sanguine but it should spark something and this show didn’t light my fire. But it’s all subjective ultimately and I often wonder what I’m missing due to my ignorance—and my colorblindness.
I imagine it’s similar to how BeBop sounds to people who don’t understand how the music is created. Before I knew anything about how Parker and Diz and Bud and the rest of that early gang of harmonic havoc wreakers were playing with song structures and chord inversions, all I heard was the energy and the speed of intense inventiveness. But once I had a better understanding of what they were doing it added considerably to my enjoyment--despite the fact that my brain still can’t keep up with the changes for a lot of it, and a tune like Donna Lee is something I’ll probably never even consider tackling.
Was determined not to watch the Jets or any Football this weekend. Stayed busy outdoors doing my wood working and tending to minor chores, but then made the mistake of turning on the tube just to see how the Jets made out and found myself caught up in the Giants-Patriots contest. Just when I thought I had the habit kicked, along comes a game so full of drama and suspense and heroics that I’m back to square one and back in the clutches of the force that seems to be greater than my will to resist.
Cally and Hobbes…Hobbes in foreground.
Our dog’s name is Cally. She got the name because she was preceded by the now deceased Hobbes. Hobbes got his name from the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes…and so when Cally came along we couldn’t name her Calvin, so we settled on Cally. I had sort of forgotten, (until I recently came across a collection in a book store) how great that strip was and how much Eli and Will loved it, and how brilliant Bill Watterson was (is).
And I think his books may have been Eli and Will’s first introduction to the world of philosophy—and they couldn’t have had a better tutor. So I leave you with a brief collection of Watterson Wisdom:
CALVIN & HOBBES QUOTES
I like maxims that don't encourage behavior modification.
Weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless.
Life's disappointments are harder to take when you don't know any swear words.
In my opinion, we don't devote nearly enough scientific research to finding a cure for jerks.
This one's tricky. You have to use imaginary numbers, like eleventeen ..
Dear Santa. Why is your operation located at the North Pole? I'm guessing cheap elf labour, lower environmental standards, and tax breaks. Is this really the example you want to set for us impressionable kids? ...My plan is to put him on the defensive before he considers how good I've been.
~
"MOM, CAN I SET FIRE TO MY BED MATTRESS?"
"No, Calvin."
"CAN I RIDE MY TRICYCLE ON THE ROOF?"
"No, Calvin."
"Then can I have a cookie?"
"No, Calvin."
"She's on to me."
I go to school, but I never learn what I want to know.
Hobbes : "Do you think there's a God?
Calvin : "Well somebody's out to get me!"
"The world isn't fair, Calvin."
"I know Dad, but why isn't it ever unfair in my favour?"
H : "What are you doing?"
C : "Being cool."
H : "You look more like you're bored."
C : "The world bores you when you're cool."
To make a bad day worse, spend it wishing for the impossible.
So the secret to good self-esteem is to lower your expectations to the point where they're already met?
It's only work if somebody makes you do it
My only regret is blowing the best day of my life while I'm so young
What state do you live in?" "Denial."
De Kooning retrospective at MOMA. So I accompany Ellen—and I say “accompany” cause it would not occur to me to check it out unless urged to by another, and if that another is my wife I am then more inclined to join in if for no other reason than to have some common experience to share thoughts/memories of and inject some variety into our more pedestrian daily routine. She really liked it. She appreciates the color and dynamic use and interaction of shape and form –and since she is now studying collage, it was of particular interest to her to see how De Kooning combines so many different elements in a single canvas. And I can see what she’s responding to and appreciate it as well in a formal fashion. But I was unmoved by most of it—except the work he did in his teens and in his dotage. When it comes to visual art, I’m ignorant of the technical issues involved and I pretty much respond to it on simple grounds of personal taste.
“The Ultimate Rule ought to be: 'If it sounds GOOD to you, it's bitchin'; if it sounds BAD to YOU, it's shitty…”
Frank Zappa
With De Kooning, I just don’t sense anything beautiful or pleasing in the work. What is depicted as an interpretation of nature doesn’t seem natural and what is depicted as humanity doesn’t appear human. It’s actually kind of a grotesque vision of humanity to my eyes. All that color and all that cubism geometry and nothing looks really alive or organic.
The show is huge and I can’t look at more than a few dozen paintings before running out of attentiveness and focus. So after giving a few select canvases my full consideration I began wandering around the rooms looking at the people. What I saw was a lot of studious faces mixed with those who just look like people who always check out the hot art show in town. What I didn’t see in any of the faces was pleasure or engagement. I didn’t see what I saw at the Matisse Show, which was a sense of wonder and even a kind of gratitude. Not that art can’t also spark fires of other emotions less sanguine but it should spark something and this show didn’t light my fire. But it’s all subjective ultimately and I often wonder what I’m missing due to my ignorance—and my colorblindness.
I imagine it’s similar to how BeBop sounds to people who don’t understand how the music is created. Before I knew anything about how Parker and Diz and Bud and the rest of that early gang of harmonic havoc wreakers were playing with song structures and chord inversions, all I heard was the energy and the speed of intense inventiveness. But once I had a better understanding of what they were doing it added considerably to my enjoyment--despite the fact that my brain still can’t keep up with the changes for a lot of it, and a tune like Donna Lee is something I’ll probably never even consider tackling. Was determined not to watch the Jets or any Football this weekend. Stayed busy outdoors doing my wood working and tending to minor chores, but then made the mistake of turning on the tube just to see how the Jets made out and found myself caught up in the Giants-Patriots contest. Just when I thought I had the habit kicked, along comes a game so full of drama and suspense and heroics that I’m back to square one and back in the clutches of the force that seems to be greater than my will to resist.
Cally and Hobbes…Hobbes in foreground.
Our dog’s name is Cally. She got the name because she was preceded by the now deceased Hobbes. Hobbes got his name from the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes…and so when Cally came along we couldn’t name her Calvin, so we settled on Cally. I had sort of forgotten, (until I recently came across a collection in a book store) how great that strip was and how much Eli and Will loved it, and how brilliant Bill Watterson was (is).
And I think his books may have been Eli and Will’s first introduction to the world of philosophy—and they couldn’t have had a better tutor. So I leave you with a brief collection of Watterson Wisdom:
CALVIN & HOBBES QUOTES
I like maxims that don't encourage behavior modification.
Weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless.
Life's disappointments are harder to take when you don't know any swear words.
In my opinion, we don't devote nearly enough scientific research to finding a cure for jerks.
This one's tricky. You have to use imaginary numbers, like eleventeen ..
Dear Santa. Why is your operation located at the North Pole? I'm guessing cheap elf labour, lower environmental standards, and tax breaks. Is this really the example you want to set for us impressionable kids? ...My plan is to put him on the defensive before he considers how good I've been.
~
"MOM, CAN I SET FIRE TO MY BED MATTRESS?"
"No, Calvin."
"CAN I RIDE MY TRICYCLE ON THE ROOF?"
"No, Calvin."
"Then can I have a cookie?"
"No, Calvin."
"She's on to me."
I go to school, but I never learn what I want to know.
Hobbes : "Do you think there's a God?
Calvin : "Well somebody's out to get me!"
"The world isn't fair, Calvin."
"I know Dad, but why isn't it ever unfair in my favour?"
H : "What are you doing?"
C : "Being cool."
H : "You look more like you're bored."
C : "The world bores you when you're cool."
To make a bad day worse, spend it wishing for the impossible.
So the secret to good self-esteem is to lower your expectations to the point where they're already met?
It's only work if somebody makes you do it
My only regret is blowing the best day of my life while I'm so young
What state do you live in?" "Denial."
Friday, November 4, 2011
Got nothin today. Nothin!
First day in a long time that I got...Nothin!
So dug deep in my toy chest and found a list of Limericks...
sorry, that's all I got.
One of them is mine but I'm not telling which.
Hope you enjoy and Happy Weekend.
The fellows at Ford, a fair company,
Reject lots of cars, but don’t dompany.
They sensibly lodge ’em
At fairgrounds (think ‘dodgem’)
And warn all the kids not to bompany.
A preoccupied vegan named Hugh
picked up the wrong sandwich to chew.
He took a big bite
before spitting, in fright
"OMG, WTF, BBQ!"
The spaceship lit by it’s corona
Suggested a foreign persona.
So do we embrace
This strange alien race?
Or direct them straight to Arizona.
can't haul your ass up mountain ridges?
Or feel safe on those high narrow bridges?
then perhaps it's high time
You were told in rude rhyme
keep your fat ass away from the fridges
Yes, this limerick is squarely five-line.
That's a number agreed as divine.
Count the syllables? Lordy!
They stop before forty,
Amounting to just thirty-nine.
It will bug you and leave you no rest,
Try your patience, and leave you all stressed.
It'll take all your time
making five lines of rhyme;
Damn limerick is simply a pest.
Ok, so it's bad, but, good grief,
you can sense coming soon is relief
for as verse after verse
Goes from rotten to worse,
at least you can say I was brief.
A limerick’s deceptively tricky
The meter is easy but sticky
lines one and two rhyme
three and four also chime
but five is the kicker that you really gotta think about.
First day in a long time that I got...Nothin!
So dug deep in my toy chest and found a list of Limericks...
sorry, that's all I got.
One of them is mine but I'm not telling which.
Hope you enjoy and Happy Weekend.
The fellows at Ford, a fair company,
Reject lots of cars, but don’t dompany.
They sensibly lodge ’em
At fairgrounds (think ‘dodgem’)
And warn all the kids not to bompany.
A preoccupied vegan named Hugh
picked up the wrong sandwich to chew.
He took a big bite
before spitting, in fright
"OMG, WTF, BBQ!"
The spaceship lit by it’s corona
Suggested a foreign persona.
So do we embrace
This strange alien race?
Or direct them straight to Arizona.
can't haul your ass up mountain ridges?
Or feel safe on those high narrow bridges?
then perhaps it's high time
You were told in rude rhyme
keep your fat ass away from the fridges
Yes, this limerick is squarely five-line.
That's a number agreed as divine.
Count the syllables? Lordy!
They stop before forty,
Amounting to just thirty-nine.
It will bug you and leave you no rest,
Try your patience, and leave you all stressed.
It'll take all your time
making five lines of rhyme;
Damn limerick is simply a pest.
Ok, so it's bad, but, good grief,
you can sense coming soon is relief
for as verse after verse
Goes from rotten to worse,
at least you can say I was brief.
A limerick’s deceptively tricky
The meter is easy but sticky
lines one and two rhyme
three and four also chime
but five is the kicker that you really gotta think about.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Lexy Cal Am Big You Itty Rezo Loo Shin.
A computer/science illiterate attempts to understand the intelligence of artificial intelligence.
The most frequently used words in English are highly ambiguous: Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary lists 94 meanings for the word “run” as a verb alone.
The word "bat" can describe an animal, a sports apparatus, the use of a sports apparatus, the blink of an eye, and more.
And yet computers are learning all the “runs”.
And all the “bats”.
And all the other words.
And all the other combinations of words.
And all the other combinations of words—in all their combinations.
Or are they?
How can a computer program be made to understand so many words in an almost infinite number of contexts --especially when those contexts are compounded by all the other mitigating conundrums of language like idiom and syntax?
If I knew the answer I’d be working at a LAR Lab.
LAR is Lexical Ambiguity Resolution ( appearing phonetically in the headline of this post) and it’s the central problem in natural language and computational semantics research. And it’s what’s behind all that voice recognition stuff that you get when you call customer service lines, and what Apple built into the new iPhone that let’s you find the nearest Spicy Salmon Roll with a simple query like “I’m in the mood for Sushi.”
Sidebar: When I looked up LAR I found a site that listed LAR as the acronym for 52 things, none of which was Lexical Ambiguity Resolution. Talk about context?
I guess if they can teach a computer to play Chess, they can make it learn words. Yet, somehow I think Chess and Language is apples and oranges. Hey, I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about since I don’t know the first thing about programming computers, yet I do have some appreciation of the complexity of the English language and a fair understanding of how tricky it can be (which is why I love wordplay). But programming a computer to “understand” context in language blows my mind. What would they make of:
“They passed the port as dawn rose”
Was that port by the river, or from the wine rack?
Did they pass it by or pass it around?
And did Dawn get a sip?
Or
“Visiting distant relatives can be inconvenient.”
Unless, of course, it's the other way around.
Or
“The rabbi married my sister who was looking for a match ”
Oy Vey.
So I did some reading and here’s what I learned.
“The problem is specifying the nature of context and how it interacts with the rest of an “understanding” system. “
“Advanced computer speech does not need all words to be programmed, it only needs all transitions between any pair of sounds (phonemes) in a language.”
Aha, so it’s sounds not words. It’s not really the language that has to be interpreted, it’s the sound of the components of the language.
Which to my mind begs the question:
Who’s making the sounds? A drawling pig farmer from Arkansas? A nasal soccer mom from Long Gi-land? A Cockney lad from Liverpool? George Bush? Me?
I had a voice recognition system installed in my desktop by the geniuses at IBM back in the mid-90’s when I worked at Prodigy -- remember Prodigy? It was the ill-fated online service that was 10 years too early and ran out of money and vision just when AOL and internet Browsers hit the scene. All I had to do was say “open Mail” and my e-mail screen would appear. Or I could speak any number of other commands and the computer would magically comply. Until one day I came to work with a bad cold and my nasal drip and phlegmy throat altered my voice and rendered the system incapable of carrying out my congested wishes. “The most complicated part of the programming is turning "human readable" text into phonemes. Sounds. Mistakes in this process are what account for the often hilarious results in GPS pronunciation.”
The GPS in our car (we call her Ethel) is a real comedienne. She tells us to: “Take The Van Why Sick” (for the Van Wyck Expressway) I can only imagine the fun in LA or in the South-West with all the Mexican names: “Now arriving at I’ve a need a Cab Brillo? ” Our landline at home has caller ID voice that always says “Call from Verizon Were-Eels. “ (Verizon Wireless)(Most phonetics in the GPS-device market are produced by a company called the Acapela Group…gotta love that)
Good Luck LAR folk, but don’t mess with Ethel . She’s our portable dependable and entertaining Mrs. Malaprop and we like her just the way she are.
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