Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
--Albert Einstein





Yester is, the prefix, that we fix, to things that have gone by
Forever they say, yeah,
even though my yester love
Has slipped through my fingers, I find it still lingers
in my heart today
--Smokey Robinson





"Ain't It, Baby" (1961)

"You even wrote yourself a love note and signed some man's name. Uh, then, you put it where I could find it. It's just a lowdown, dirty shame."

"You've Really Got a Hold on Me" (1962)

The whole damn song…beginning with:

I don't like you, but I love you

Seems like I'm always thinkin of you
You treat me badly
I love you madly
you really got a hold on me... 


"My Girl" (1964)

Wrote it for The Temptations

" I've got so much honey the bees envy me.
I've got a sweeter song than the birds in the trees."

"Ooo Baby Baby" (1965)

What a melody. What harmonies, (arranged by fellow Miracle Pete Moore --who took home a co-writing credit) and what an ache in Smokey's voice.

"I did you wrong. My heart went out to play. But in the game I lost you. What a price to pay....I'm cryin."

"The Tracks of My Tears" (1965)

"So take a good look at my face
You'll see my smile looks out of place
If you look closer, it's easy to trace
The tracks of my tears.."

and

"Since you left me if you see me with another girl,
seeming like I'm having fun.
Although she may be cute, she's just a substitute
because you're the permanent one."

Rhyming cute and substitute internally and then paying off with permanent one to rhyme with having fun is sooooo…Smokey.

"Ain't That Peculiar" (1965)
Gave it to Marvin Gaye…

" A child can cry so much until you do everything they say.
But unlike a child my tears don't help me to get my way."

"I Second That Emotion" (1967)

"A taste of honey is worse than none at all."

"The Tears of a Clown" (1967)
music by Stevie Wonder who brought it to Robinson for the lyric.

"Just like Pagliacci did, I try to keep my sadness hid.
Smiling in the public eye, but in my lonely room,
I cry the tears of a clown . . .
when there's no one around."

Wonder if Berry Gordy tried to take out the Pagliacci mention.

The Miracles were: Pete Moore, Bobby Rogers, Ron White, and secret weapon Marv Tarplin, guitarist, co-composer; and a shout out to early members Sonny Rogers and his sister (and Smokey's wife for 27 years) Claudette Rogers.

" Without The Miracles, there would be no Motown"
--Berry Gordy

" Without the Miracles, there would be no Stevie Wonder."
--Stevie Wonder.











PET PEEVES



Starting with the one above...not just that it's empty, but that the tissue is rolling over the top instead of down the back.

Putting "pretty much clean already" stuff in the dishwasher. In fact, the whole dishwasher thing itself ticks me off. Wash the dish! And you're done! As opposed to putting it in the dishwasher (saving yourself about 5 seconds of dishwashing?) and then putting soap in the dispenser then wait for it to do its thing, then come back at another time for the chore of unloading it. I don't get it. Take the extra 5 seconds to wash the dish and you're done!

Dinner parties. Make up your mind. Is it a dinner or a party? Most dinners I've been to didn't resemble parties, and most parties I've enjoyed weren't about the dinner. Party with Food works. Even Food Party works, if that floats your boat. But tell me it's a Dinner Party and I just got the flu and can't make it.

Using R&B label to describe music that features neither rhythm nor blues.

Waiters reciting more than 3 specials of the day--especially if that includes reciting all the ingredients, half of which are in French. Put it on a blackboard, a piece of paper, an index card, someplace I can read it. Otherwise the only special I'm likely to order is the one I can vaguely remember had the ingredient I recognized as food.

Late night meetings. Unfuckinbelievable how we have to put up with workaholic show-offs who schedule this shit just to prove what tough soldiers they are (or simply because they have no evening plans and nowhere to go) And they generally tend to be the ones who take 3 hours for lunch. Only time I wish I was more of a big shot is when I'm sitting in a meeting at 7:30 pm with some bozo who's struggling to get his PowerPoint presentation to work and telling everyone how he had been working on it since 6 am. Next time plan ahead Mr. Mighty Mojo Power Ranger and call your meeting when the sun's still shining.

Is it time to tell our Banks to take a hike? What are we getting from them? The fees more than offset the paltry interest rates and ATM's are where we get cash and we can get that off our credit cards. Only thing I can think of is that they provide a Notary for the 4 times a decade you need one.







WHICH ONE IS A PICTURE OF AN ACIDIC FRUIT?

If that's a suntan, it's not from the sun in this solar system.





WILLIAM BLAKE

Can't say I like his paintings (phantasmagoria isn't my style) but to be able to draw like that and also write like he did is freakish. Can't imagine what people thought of him in his own day...though we know he was generally regarded as a madman. He fits neatly into no category or school or tradition but he's on fire in every brush stroke and every word. If he were alive today he'd probably be doing film animation and blowing Pixar and the Anime folks out of the water.










DIVINE IMAGE

To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,
All pray in their distress,
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.

For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,
Is God our Father dear;
And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,
Is man, his child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart
Pity, a human face;
And Love, the human form divine;
And Peace, the human dress.

Then every man, of every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine:
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.

And all must love the human form,
In heathen, Turk, or Jew.
Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell,
There God is dwelling too.

William Blake

IF YOU GOT NOTHING NICE TO SAY...GRIPE!



Public television isn't.

And it shows. The programming is safe, predictable, politically correct and paternalistic in tone and manner.
PBS is underwritten by the biggest corporate names in America. As are Opera Companies, Symphony orchestras, Repertory Theatres and Art Museums. Subscriptions and audience support represents a small fraction of the dollars necessary to keep these institutions afloat. Subscription television (like the kind produced by the company I work for) is far less risk averse and conservative. You won’t see Paul Provenza talking about the CIA being in bed with Halliburton or Penn Gillette still questioning the Warren Commission report and comparing it to the 9/11 commission on PBS. But you will see Peter, Paul and Mary in concert with six 20 minute breaks for fund-raising and historical dramas that bring us World War I as if seen through the eyes of Jane Austen.





Same Highway. Different names. You’re looking for the exit to the Whitestone Expressway. You see a sign for I-678…which is the same thing, but it doesn’t say Whitestone Expressway. Are we all expected to know the names and the numbers for everything?



Can’t walk on sidewalk because The Today Show is taping a segment on the street. It’s their street now? Gotta walk 3 extra blocks to get to work so NBC can look like they’re in touch with the people on the street.



Cops on Horseback. Must be a reason for it. Gotta be some rationale. Is this an effective crime deterrent? Are they going to gallop down Broadway chasing the Dalton Gang riding in to scalp tickets to The Book of Mormon?


Obama gives State of the Union address. Followed by panel of pundits deconstructing the speech to tell us what he really meant and really said. And we accept this as a matter of course. This used to bewilder me when I was a kid. Why listen to the speech if the guy giving it isn't meaning what he says or saying what he means? Is politics so debasing a game that it requires interpreters to translate words into their unspoken intentions? Why would anyone want to join this game if it’s all about bluffing and phony posturing?

And what chance does someone who really does mean what he says and says what he means have? Bill Bradley couldn’t handle it—cause I suspect that though he appreciated a good fake move on the hardwood as a way to scoring a legitimate basket, he could never get used to it as a way to block legitimate legislation.



“It is much difficult to focus on God as the unmanifested than God with form, due to human beings having the need to perceive via the senses.” --Lord Krishna

Don’t virtually all religions warn against idol worship? In fact, don’t they prohibit it? And yet we encourage and celebrate idolatry as something uplifting and good. From the generally benign kind on American Idol to the canonization of Ronald Reagan by people you would think would have more on the ball than to fall for such revisionist myth-making.



Does this explain the burgeoning business of nail salons?
Gotta keep those nails short enough for good touch sensitivity and long enough for good looks. Or is it just another escape into vanity and self-involvement in stormy weather times?








We need the Janitor who did this to run for higher office. Or at least let him be in charge of a Think Tank.





Did you see the Nole/Rafa match? If you did, I think it's safe to say that it ranks up there with the most intense ever. I was jumping off the couch so much that I almost needed to call for the trainer. Unfrigginbelievable!

I’ve had 180 page views from Russia this year.



And all I can say is:
ti takaya dobraya. Spasiba.
(You’re so kind. Thank You)

and can you tell me who you are, what you want,
and if I should be afraid?



HEARD, SEEN, FOUND, THOUGHT, AND SOON TO BE FORGOTTEN


A bright and glorious future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed.

The recent tragic cruise ship accident is all the sadder considering what we now know about the cowardly captain and his abandonment of ship when lives were at stake and chaos reigned. I knew I had heard there was something fishy about Italian ships—and unsurprisingly it was from Noel Coward who said:

"I only travel on Italian ships. In the event of sinking, there’s none of that ‘women and children first’ nonsense!"


Ford Automobile Company Chief executive, Henry Ford II,
and the leader of the automobile workers union, Walter Reuther,
upon reviewing the new advanced machinery operating at the plant:

Henry Ford II: Walter, how are you going to get those robots to pay your union dues?
Walter Reuther: Henry, how are you going to get them to buy your cars?

And the problem is much worse now. Obama says he wants to create more jobs at home, but business is turning more and more work over to machines—and giving what’s left to third world parties who can get cheap (very cheap) labor. Those jobs are not coming back. How many pole dancers, burger flippers and reality TV stars does it take to turn an economy around?

Obama Agonistes is on my mind a lot these days. We all knew it would come to this (didn't we?) All that poetic hope and promise turning to mud-slinging cynicism and scape-goating. But no surprise. The general public only knows what they're told, and all they're told is what works for the tellers, and all that works for the tellers is tall-tales and horror fiction. I don't have a clue as to how best to address issues re: Fiscal Failure, Iranian militarism, Unemployment, Credit crisis, European debt, American debt, China trade...not a clue, not even a hint of an idea of a clue. And yet there are so many who are so much less informed and thoughtful than I who seem to know exactly what we (he) should be doing. And the two ton elephant in the room is that we are living in an Oligarchy and Obama has less power and influence than the guys doing 2 minute spiels about looming socialism on FoxNews. But none of it would bother me much (at this late date in my life when there's not much in the political realm I haven't seen before at least three times over) except for the obvious (to me) element of racism. I've argued with friends who don't agree, and I've patiently considered all i've seen and heard, but I think racism is what lies beneath the surface of much of the anti-Obama sentiment. And it's a racism that carries with it all the tell-tale signs of rabid ignorant hate born of fear of everything and anything that is THE OTHER. It's not just a black thing...it's THE THING thing.
The monster can be a Commie, or a Martian. Obama is one of The Others to many americans. And I think that's what has emboldened so many incompetent, incoherent, and unelectable would be candidates to throw their hats in the ring.
Subconsciously, people like Newt and Perry and Mitt and the rest of them must all feel that their chances are vastly improved by simply being something other than THE OTHER. Mitt's mormonism is nothing compared to Barack's otherness--and Newt's shameful and scandalous past pales before what people consider to be Barack's strange, exotic, and dark (in every way) family history. The whole thing makes me sick and I feel sick just writing about it, so I'll stop.

If every dogma has its day, how'd Newt Gingrich get two?

Jay Z will be performing at Carnegie Hall next week.
Tickets price ranges from 500 to 2500 dollars.
Who’s going? NBA players?

'Civilisation is hideously fragile. There's not much between us and the horrors underneath. Just a coat of varnish.'
A Coat of Varnish-- CP Snow

From a book review:
" it's a story with a beginning, a muddle, and an end."

Mario Cuomo said “you campaign in poetry and govern in prose."

Went to the "Outsider" art show with Ellen. The Outsider label is repellent to me. "Folk" I guess is the old term. So why switch to Outsider? What is Insider art? OK, I get it, these are "un-trained" "un-schooled" artists. Right, like Ray Charles? Louis Armstrong? Stevie Wonder? The Beatles? It all looks like art to me. And most of it looked like it took a helluva lot of skill and discipline and technique. Only critics, dealers, PR people and profiteers have anything to gain from using the label "Outsider". As for the exhibit...almost too much to take in, like an all you eat buffet-- you get full before you can even taste half of it. But much of it is terrific. So much of art strives to be super-human and larger than life that it feels refreshing when it's simply human and life size. BTW: some of the art had price tags that seemed targeted to anything but "folk" ...guess if you're an insider who likes Outsider, you can get the inside track on who's gonna be the next big Outsider and drop 35 grand on his/her Outsider painting and show it off to all your insider friends.

July 18 1963: The Beatles recorded:

The best things in life are free
But you can keep ’em for the birds and bees
Now give me money
That’s what I want

Then...

January 29 1964 they recorded:
I'll buy you a diamond ring my friend
If it makes you feel all right
I'll get you anything my friend
If it makes you feel all right
'Cause I don't care too much for money
For money can't buy me love

Damn, they sure got rich fast.


100% Blue Agave for the 1%. Went to a friend’s house, asked for Tequila. He fetches a blue box. Very fancy one. Inside Box is classy little booklet, some kind of certificate, and a bottle of Tequila. Price: $250.00. I’m speechless. Relieved to hear he didn’t pay for it--got it free (long story) Whew. He pours me some. Nice taste. Is it 10 times better than a $25.00 bottle ? Well I guess it is if you think it is…but I’m sure I’d fail a taste test just trying to determine that it was even different from the others. Wonder if any of those harvesting the Agave, stirring the vat, or filling the kegs down in Mexico know what it’s selling for in the US.





"Dutch" Treat

When I heard Elmore Leonard speak a few nights back, he talked about his now famous (and published in a book of its own that I'm sure his publisher wanted more than he did) rules of writing. You gotta love rules like this. So Un-Rule like, and so like him to make them so simple and plain.

Reading his new book Raylan --and best I can say is it's better than no Leonard at all. Not that it's bad, but he set the bar so high over the years that it may be too much to ask that he always maintain it--specially at the age of 86! His book before this one was not one I'd recommend either--but it did have a spark of experimentation that made it strangely provocative. In this new one, more than anything else I'm struck by the further simplification of an already bare- bones style. Leonard is the master of the sharp, short and sweet cut to the chase page turner--and in this book he's honed it to the point of the surreal. Characters and situations are introduced and developed in such quick strokes that almost nothing rings true in terms of the world most of us live in. Reminds me of painters like Matisse and DeKooning whose late works reduced color and form to the barest essentials and sometimes even the essentials went out the window. It's like an impression of the impressionistic--where what is left out becomes more the focus than what is included. But I'm not sure it works in fiction writing. I'm only halfway through, but already I can tell that this is not really a novel, but a series of situations and barely connected snapshots of a world where everyone is playing a quintessential "Elmore Leonard" type in a quintessential Elmore Leonard narrative. And the dialogue, for which he is so deservingly famous has been reduced to such a spareness, that at times you think you're reading Beckett or Pinter, albeit with a hearty appetite for deadly physical force. UPDATE: I read further since penning the above. The second narrative thread in Raylan is very good. Coal Mining town in post industrial America through a lens of hard boiled Sopranoesque real Politik. Emile Zola would have approved.

In the short time that has passed since my son Will began performing Stand-Up Comedy, I’ve seen more of it than I did in all the years prior. And my appreciation of what it takes to do it well has grown.

As is often the case in any field of endeavor, those who excel often create the impression that what they are doing comes easily and naturally—hence the assumption on the part of many people to think of it as “Talent”-- when in fact it’s the result of a great deal of practice, applied knowledge and experimentation. And of all the performing arts, Stand-Up Comedy may be the most demanding, daunting, challenging and frightening. It’s all on you, all the time. And if its not working, you know it right away—and there’s no one to bail you out, pick you up or share the burden. It’s not for the weak of heart or the thin skinned. Just getting up there and giving it a shot earns my respect.

And one thing that has occurred to me lately (having revisited the world of Pogo and Calvin and Hobbes) is that the best stand-up comics have a lot in common with the best cartoonists--minus the game changing fact that the cartoonist doesn’t have to witness (endure?) the reader’s response in person.

Both practice the arts of concision and compression—crafting and shaping ideas to fit a form with limited and precise specifications in space and time. Each works within structures that would seem to be too restrictive to allow for a richness of expression or thought. But the best transcend the limitations of the form and are able to create memorable and affecting work. They are story- tellers and truth tellers and keen observers of life and the world around us. And because they search and find what is comic in our lives, they provide a valuable service by reminding us that without a sense of humor, life makes no sense at all.





A while back I wrote about essayist Arthur Krystal and mentioned his essay on Aphorisms. You can find it in his book:
Except When I Write : Reflections of a Recovering Critic

http://www.amazon.com/Except-When-Write-Reflections-Recovering/dp/0199782407




That essay got me started collecting aphorisms and I think I posted something a while back with some of them…but today it’s proverbs and their derivations, which are distinguished from aphorisms by subtleties too debatable to discuss (maxim, proverb, gnome, aphorism, apothegm, sententia…all pretty much the same thing)

Suffice to say that the element of advice or instruction is in play in both…or at least a “rule of thumb” kind of thing is at work- which, if considered by enough people and generations practical and worthy, goes on to survive and become familiar and proverbial. Most of what follows is cut and paste of what I’ve found…

An apple a day keeps the doctor away

The February 1866 edition of Notes and Queries magazine includes this:

"A Pembrokeshire proverb. Eat an apple on going to bed, And you'll keep the doctor from earning his bread."

A number of variants of the rhyme were in circulation around the turn of the 20th century.
In 1913, Elizabeth Wright recorded a Devonian dialect version and also first known record of the version we use now, in Rustic Speech and Folk-lore:

"Ait a happle avore gwain to bed, An' you'll make the doctor beg his bread

Apples have a good claim to promote health. They contain Vitamin C, which aid the immune system and phenols, which reduce cholesterol. They also reduce tooth decay by cleaning one's teeth and killing off bacteria. And recent research shows that the quercetin found in apples protects brain cells against neuro-degenerative disorders like Alzheimer's Disease.

But it wasn't their precise medicinal properties that were being exalted when this phrase was coined. In Old English the word apple was used to describe any round fruit that grew on a tree.

Beauty is only skin deep

First found in a work by Sir Thomas Overbury's, 1613:

"All the carnall beauty of my wife, Is but skin deep."

Hmmm, wonder what she had to say when she heard that. There is a fanciful work attributed to Overbury called A true and historical relation of the poysoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, 1651. Perhaps she had him worried?

A stitch in time saves nine

Saves nine what? Turns out, the stitch in time is simply the sewing up of a small hole in a piece of material and so saving the need for more stitching at a later date, when the hole has become larger, so it’s referring to saving nine stitches.

The Anglo Saxon work ethic is being called on here. Many English proverbs encourage immediate effort as superior to putting things off until later; for example, 'one year's seeds, seven year's weeds', 'procrastination is the thief of time' and 'the early bird catches the worm.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Always thought it meant better to have one sure thing than two possibles –but this proverb refers back to mediaeval falconry where a bird in the hand (the falcon) was a valuable asset and certainly worth more than two in the bush (the prey). So it’s saying that even if you had those two in the bush, they wouldn’t exceed the value of the one in hand.

The Bird in Hand was adopted as a pub name in England in the Middle Ages and many of these still survive.







The term must have been known in the USA by 1734, as that is the date when a small town in Pennsylvania was founded with that name.




Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all

From Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem In Memoriam:27, 1850:

I hold it true, whate'er befall;

I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'
Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.


(don't) Upset the apple-cart

This allusory phrase is first recorded by Jeremy Belknap in The History of New Hampshire, 1788:

"Adams had almost overset the apple-cart by intruding an amendment of his own fabrication on the morning of the day of ratification" [of the Constitution].

Out of sight, out of mind

The use of 'in mind' for 'remembered' and 'out of mind' for 'forgotten' date back to the at least the 13th century.

The phrase is used as an example of the comic results that early computer translation and speech recognition programmes came up with. The phrase 'out of sight, out of mind' was supposed to have been translated by a computer as 'invisible idiot', 'blind and insane' etc.

This is on a par with 'computers can wreck a nice peach' (computers can recognise speech), which is also used as an example of how computers lack the general knowledge to compare with humans at speech recognition.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink

The oldest proverb on record so I’ve discovered…though I imagine such a thing is not easy to confirm…It was recorded as early as 1175 in Old English Homilies:

Hwa is thet mei thet hors wettrien the him self nule drinken? 
[who can give water to the horse that will not drink of its own accord?]

There are other pretenders to the throne of the oldest English proverb; for example:

A friend in need is a friend indeed.
(mid 11th century in English; 5th century BC in Greek)

When the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.
(late 9th century in English; Bible, Luke Chapter 6)

The proverb 'lead a horse to water' has been in continuous use since the 12th century. John Heywood listed it in the influential glossary A Dialogue Conteinyng the Nomber in Effect of all the Prouerbes in the Englishe Tongue:

"A man maie well bring a horse to the water, But he can not make him drinke without he will."

It wasn't until the 20th century that 'lead a horse to water...' got a substantial rewrite, when Dorothy Parker reworked it (and vastly improved it) from its proverbial form into the epigram 'you can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think'.

(Don’t) Throw out the baby with the bath water

My father used to say this…and I remember well thinking sometimes that he was the one who should have heeded it the most…but that’s a different story…It derives from a German proverb:

Das Kind mit dem Bade ausschütten


You can't teach an old dog new tricks

Another oldie… The earliest example of it in print is in John Fitzherbert's The boke of husbandry, 1534:

...and he [a shepherd] muste teche his dogge to barke whan he wolde haue hym, to ronne whan he wold haue hym, and to leue ronning whan he wolde haue hym; or els he is not a cunninge shepeherd. The dogge must lerne it, whan he is a whelpe, or els it will not be: for it is harde to make an olde dogge to stoupe.

By 'stoop', Fitzherbert meant 'put its nose to the ground to find a scent', as was the meaning of the verb in the 16th century.

Recently, (though can’t recall exactly where) I read something that referenced …oh, now I remember-- I was reading a novel by C.P. Snow (A Coat of Varnish) and then went online to learn more about him. Seems he became famous at one point for a lecture entitled The Two Cultures in which he said that the gap between science and the humanities was a troubling one for the future fate of the world. He said that ignorance among scientists concerning the arts and ignorance among those in humanities concerning science was creating a dangerous situation in which both disciplines were functioning without the necessary tools to perform their respective functions in a productive (or non-destructive) manner. At one point in the lecture he said :

A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is about the scientific equivalent of: 'Have you read a work of Shakespeare's?'


This stopped me in my tracks since I was pretty sure he had me stumped too.
So onward…online…and into the world of thermodynamics.

Holy Shit!
I say to myself --as a predominantly right brained person…

...because, though in basic theory it’s not really that complicated, the explanations and definitions I find are so inconsistent and diverse as to make me feel like I’m not really absorbing it. Forget the math stuff, I’m just trying to find some simple language a la “Themodynamics for Dummies”. But it seems I need to do a lot more studying before I attain the level of “Dummy”.

Okay, maybe if I start with the 1st law before trying to tackle number two: And that yields:

qrev/T or free energy = ΔG and ΔS

Thanks. Next please,

"In all cases in which work is produced by the agency of heat, a quantity of heat is consumed which is proportional to the work done; and conversely, by the expenditure of an equal quantity of work an equal quantity of heat is produced.

You can have a seat too...

A change in the internal energy of a closed thermodynamic system is equal to the difference between the heat supplied to the system and the amount of work done by the system on its surroundings.

Anyone else?

Energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed. The total amount of energy and matter in the Universe remains constant, merely changing from one form to another.

Whew…much better. Thanks, now I think I got it.

Now I’m ready for the 2nd law.
Whoa, not so fast Kowalski, seems that after they came up with the first law they realized they had left out an even more fundamental one—so they called it:

The Zeroth Law

The Zeroth Law simply says there is no heat flow between objects that are the same temperature.

Got it. Hot milk in hot coffee doesn’t cool the coffee that much.
Now on to number 2.

The Second Law says:
entropy always increases in a closed system.

So I go spend some time in the world of Entropy before going back to the second law simply expressed as:

Heat cannot spontaneously flow from a colder location to a hotter location.

Got that too. Hot things want to cool down but cool things like to stay cool.

I keep going and finally get to something I can really relate to:

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun, 

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
--Robert Frost.

The "something" that hates walls is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. There is a natural direction for walls. The natural direction is to fall apart. Walls don’t naturally fall together. And if you don’t work at keeping it together…it will inevitably fall apart.

Aha! The second law of thermodynamics is my marriage!

Bingo! Shoulda gone to the poets right away…

Now I’m ready for the third law and learn that:
If an object reaches the absolute zero of temperature its atoms will stop moving.

I'm in NY. It's January. Been there. Done that.

And then of course I remember that this all began with C.P. Snow—so I go find him and he’s just what the doctor ordered.
Snow summed it up like this:

First Law: You cannot win
Second Law: You cannot even break even
Third: You cannot get out of the game

A life story in two sentences:

"Mom & Pop were just a couple of kids when they got married. He was eighteen, she was sixteen and I was three."

~ Billie Holiday ~







Australian Open tennis. Do the women hit the ball harder today than the men did 20 years ago?

If Carmelo Anthony joined a Kibbutz for a month or at the very least visited with Bill Russell for a few days, might he then better understand the concept of sharing?

Does television watching cause hangovers? I have no evidence, but I suspect it does.

Some countries name their airports after national heroes—is the U.S. the only one to name an airport after someone who just acted like one in the movies?

Got to work today. Over 100 e-mails. 3 are important. The rest is junk. I delete them As I always do. As I have been for years. Trouble is, it takes about 15 minutes to check what's junk and what's not. When you get stuff by snail mail or by phone and you don’t respond, they will eventually give up…because it costs them money to keep after you that way…on the internet is costs them virtually nothing. So does that mean junk e-mail WILL NEVER STOP?

Sometimes I wake up to radio station playing a sound bite from a political candidate or some such human impersonator that I hit the snooze button harder and faster than is probably recommended in the user’s manual. For next hour or so I’m in a foul mood. Should I switch to classical music, the buzzer, or rely on my internal clock?

If you can make it there, you’ll make it anywhere…?
Got a cab on 50th and Broadway— went to 28th and 5th. Total travel time: 27 minutes.




Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
--Daniel Patrick Moynihan

GINGRICH: "When I was speaker, we had four consecutive balanced budgets."

FACTS: Actually Newt, it was two. And what exactly do you mean by “we”?

ROMNEY: "President Barack Obama's $814 billion economic stimulus program "didn't create private-sector jobs."

FACTS: According to an August 2011 report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, between 1.2 million and 3.7 million full-time-equivalent jobs were created last year because of the stimulus.

SANTORUM: "One of (my proposals) would be to be able to deduct losses from the sale of your home. Right now you can't do that. You have to pay gains, depending on the amount, but you can't deduct the losses, as other capital losses can be."

FACTS: That’s cause the tax code is already stacked in favor of home ownership. Under federal law, when you sell your private residence, you can make up to $250,000 in profit — $500,000 if you are married — and not owe any capital gains taxes. That's a helluva break and one that doesn’t apply if you’re selling stocks or works of art.

ME: When I was in college there was far less partying and drinking on campus than there is today…

FACTS: …but the drinking age was 18, so we went off campus to bars—and since there was so much more pot and other drugs available we didn’t have to drink so much since we were usually stoned on other things.

And all I did was look it up…except for the last one, which only required a moment of honest reflection. All in all, took me less than 5 minutes…which gives me an…

Idea. Someone like Jon Stewart or Colbert should host a show where you watch the debate and a bunch of researchers are on hand to do a quick fact check on every statement. Viewers could play along at home. Big prizes go to those who catch most lies/distortions. Prizes could include trip to political convention where they could perform the same service at the event. How cool—an American Idol whistleblower instead of a singer.


"Was on my way home last night and stopped at one of my favorite haunts. It's the Mercantile Library. on 47th off Madison. It was founded in 1820 and it still looks the same as it did then. To walk in there and comb the shelves in the back or browse through racks out front is like stepping back in time and getting a taste for what it was like when books and literature were regarded as cultural treasures worthy of the highest regard and care. When the weather permits, they roll out four or five carts to the sidewalk where I have found buried treasures more often than not. I discovered Michael Malone there and at least a dozen others. And last night I popped in to see if I could find a copy of a collection of Melville stories that I thought I had spotted on a previous visit, but when I got to the racks in back, they were blocked by a portable coat rack packed from end to end with winter wear. Had times become so desperate that they were now selling used clothing? I enquired as the sound of laughter rolled down the stairs from above. Seems it was to accommodate the hundred or so people upstairs who had come to hear ....Elmore Leonard. Yowza! The Man. Dutch himself!
I headed upstairs and joined the throng. He's aged, he's slowed down, but he's still good. And funny. And never hesitant to cut through the bull and pretension and call it like he sees it. But like all these things, it's makes me a bit uncomfortable watching people I admire having to slog through stuff he's probably said a thousand times before and listening to people asking questions that are intended to call attention to themselves--and I always feel the guest of honor is trying to be gracious and patient and would probably prefer to be almost anywhere else except for the fact that such events are part of the game of selling books. So I thought I'd just grab my coat and go as soon as it was over and not stick around for the meet and greet and book signing part. But then I thought, hey, I'll buy the book and if I can get it signed, that would be kinda cool too. So I got on line and watched as those in front of me took their sweet time chatting with the great man (who looked tired and on the verge of packing it in) and thought about whether I should say something when it was my turn or just give him a quick salute to shorten the discomfort for us both. As it came to be my turn, I handed him the book and said: " Thanks for all the great reads--did you enjoy this evening?" I don't know why I added the question, I guess I really did want to engage him at some level even briefly. He looked up at me and said " I like to think of myself as a gentleman..." and then he looked over to the woman sitting next to him, who I assumed was a representative of the library or his publisher--and then turned back to me and added "...so I cannot give you an honest answer." I laughed. And so did a few others who heard him. He signed the book and I saluted him again and was on my way.

David Graeber teaches at Goldsmiths, University of London, and has authored several books – most recently, Debt: The First 5,000 Years. Graeber points out that, in the midst of the financial crash of 2008, enormous debts between banks were renegotiated. Yet only a fraction of troubled mortgages have gotten the same treatment.

He said:
"Debts between the very wealthy or between governments can always be renegotiated and always have been throughout world history. … It's when you have debts owed by the poor to the rich that suddenly debts become a sacred obligation, more important than anything else. The idea of renegotiating them becomes unthinkable."

Clarke and Dawe. These guys are good. And prolific. Started doing bits like this in the late 80s. Like Bob and Ray (for those of us who remember them) but more pointed and politically focused. Lots to choose from on YouTube…here’s a taste.





M I T T

a : a woman's glove that leaves the fingers uncovered
b : mitten
c : a baseball catcher's or first baseman's glove made in the style of a mitten
slang : hand.

Examples of MITT
The children bundled up in hats and mitts
He can hold anything in those big mitts of his.

Origin of MITT
short for mitten
First Known Use: 1757

Rhymes with MITT:
bit, bitt, brit, Brit, chit, dit, fit, flit, frit, git, grit, hit, it, kit, knit, lit, nit, pit, quit, shit, sit, skit, slit, snit, spit, split, Split, sprit, teat, tit, twit, whit, wit, writ, zit

also:

Military Transition Team or MiTT. Members of the 1st Infantry Division's 1st and 3rd Brigade Combat Teams support the MiTT mission by training Army, Air Force and Navy NCOs and officers to teach, coach and advise Iraqi and Afghan security forces.

Focus MITTS…(also called focus pads, coaching pads, punch mitts and target pads) are flat, hand-held pads that are about 12 inches in diameter.

Morgan Interview Thematic Technique. Or The MITT.
Developed by Dr. Raymond Morgan
A Criminal Interviewing TechniqueFor Use in Detection of Deception Interviews

Mobile Interval Training Timer (MITT Registration Code) Interval training timer for mobile phone

MOS

Movie biz trivia. MOS is the term used in film and Video production when something is being shot without sound.
Accepted wisdom has it that in the early days of Hollywood, many directors were German or of German extraction--and when they shot without sound they would pronounce the phrase as "Mit out sound". However some say this is legend and that MOS actually stands for Motor Only Sync. So next time you're crashing a movie set and someone tells you to keep quiet, you can tell them that you thought they were shooting MOS, and they'll think you're part of the crew.

Ad Nauseum

I find old ads fascinating. Like all cultural artifacts, they’re a reflection of the values and preoccupations of the time. And in a culture where the material is the driving force, what better place to explore the zeitgeist than in the work of the sales force? When I first got into the ad biz I used to look at old ads just out of a curiosity about the history of the craft of it. Amazing how much it’s changed aesthetically and how little substantively. It’s shameless shilling, spinning and hyperbole for the most part, but it’s also an interesting window on the prevailing moral, scientific, and psychological mass assumptions.


1929 Radium Solar Pad

This device consisted of a radioactive pad worn on the back. Touted to relieve numerous ailments such as indigestion, asthma, neuritis, paralysis, rheumatism and more. Includes quotes from 5 medical experts including Madame Marie Curie...who I'm willing to bet was never consulted and was dead 5 years later due to exposure to radiation.





1943 Dr. West Toothbrush.
Reminding women on the homefront their American Duty is to keep healthy, keep well, keep working and keep brushing! Proper health is the nation's supreme national resource...and don't you forget it.







1924 Beeman's Chewing Gum. I read that the original product used a picture of a pig on the logo...but then they switched to photo of Dr. Beeman and sales improved. Marketed for relief of insomnia due to indigestion...but the gum went on to become the "lucky gum" of aviators who liked the antacid effects of the pepsin and of course, the air pressure on the ear stabilizing benefit of gum chewing.





1935 Parke Davis Pharmaceutical.

Wonder if these ad guys were fans of Henry James? Examines breakthroughs in research studying menopause and medications designed to alleviate physical distress and provide comfort and peace of mind during this natural glandular readjustment. Natural glandular readjustment has a nice ring to it, wish I had known about it back when my wife was constantly asking: " Why is it so fucking hot in here?"



1947 Decca Records. On Decca records you will hear the silver voice of Bing Crosby, the songs of Carl Sandberg, legends such as Rip Van Winkle, and great speeches in the American tradition. Decca Records. The fabric of America. I just can't get over the metaphor and all the possible variations. Spinning wheel, spinning records, fabric of America,the (vinyl?) threads and needles...the ad guys must have thought they had struck poetic gold...and I wouldn't be surprised if the art director either quit or started drinking after they ran it.




From 1945. So I'm guessing that all the good ad-guys were still overseas or in transit and they turned the work over to a couple of drunks from the corner bar. Just when you conclude that the premise must have come from someone on a distant planet, you get to the copy that says: To give you more and more light for less and still less cost...that's the way to make "a lamp with more friends".





N E W T

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A newt is an aquatic amphibian of the family Salamandridae, although not all aquatic salamanders are considered newts. Newts are classified in the subfamily Pleurodelinae of the family Salamandridae, and are found in North America, Europe and Asia

Many newts produce toxins in their skin secretions as a defense mechanism against predators. Taricha newts of western North America are particularly toxic. The Rough-skinned newt Taricha granulosa of the Pacific Northwest produces more than enough tetrodotoxin to kill an adult human, and some Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest used the toxin to poison their enemies


About two thirds of all species of the family Salamandridae are commonly called "newts", comprising the following genera:
◦ Calotriton, Spanish brook newts
◦ Cynops, firebelly newts
◦ Echinotriton, spiny newts
◦ Ichthyosaura, Alpine newts
◦ Lissotriton, small bodied newts
◦ Neurergus, spotted newts
◦ Notophthalmus, Eastern newts
◦ Ommatotriton, banded newts
◦ Pachytriton, paddle-tail newts
◦ Paramesotriton, warty newts
◦ Pleurodeles, ribbed newts
◦ Taricha, Pacific newts
◦ Triturus, crested newts
Tylototriton, crocodile newts

Newt may also refer to:
◦ Newt Hall (1873–?), American Marine Corps officer who served during the Boxer Rebellion
◦ Newt Hunter (1880–1963), American baseball player
◦ Newt Randall (1880–1955), American baseball player
◦ Newt V. Mills (1899–1996), American politician
◦ Newt Allen (1901–1988), American baseball player
◦ Newton A. Perry (1908–1987), founder of a swim school in the 1950s
◦ Newt Kimball (1915–2001), American baseball player
◦ Newt Loken (born 1919), American gymnast and coach
◦ Newt Heisley (1920–2009), American commercial artist who designed the POW/MIA flag
◦ Newt Gingrich (born 1943), American politician and former Speaker of the House
In computing:
• Newt (programming library), a programming library for text-mode user interfaces
• Apple Newton, a PDA-like product from Apple, referred to as Newt for short
In fiction:
• Ned's Newt, a 1990s animated television series
• Newt (Hollyoaks), a British soap opera character
• Rebecca "Newt" Jorden, a character in the 1986 science-fiction film Aliens
• Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Test (N.E.W.T.), a test of magical aptitude in the Harry Potter series
Newt Livingston, a fictional character on the television series Cory in the House

War with the Newts, a novel by Karel Čapek

JOIN US TOMORROW WHEN THE WORD OF THE DAY WILL BE:

M I T T

SIPA and SOPA
Literature from A (straight) to Z
Dark and Stormy Nights
Plus! Hemingway and his Imitators: Featuring Woody’s Satirical Sibling


If you hadn’t known or noticed, Wikipedia was closed on Wednesday. Why? Because they wanted to call attention to two bills in Congress being debated and soon (or so we’re told) to be voted upon: Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House. I haven’t read much, but what I have read is distressing and sufficient to have motivated me to voice my objection to both proposed acts. You can learn more at:
https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/
and/or do some of your own searching to get more “objective” points of view.


Literary Firsts and Lasts...

Hemingway once wrote a story in just six words:

"For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

Pretty good, I think, and better than some of his more celebrated work, but more on that later. The topic today is literary first lines and last lines—so unless the story’s first and last line are one and the same as in Ernest’s earnest attempt, there’s quite a big crop out there to harvest. A quick search online yields a seemingly endless bounty, so it wasn’t particularly difficult to cull some nifty examples. Only real chore was screening them and arranging and then seeing if I could find a few works whose openings and closings together might be entertaining too. After going through a dozen or so lists and references, I settled on a few that I thought were pretty good (though not necessarily “good”)—and tried to avoid overloading with too many of the too familiar ie: “It was the best of times, it was the worst…”

First the Openers.

I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story. Ethan Frome—Edith Wharton

And every high school English teacher since has had a different idea about what that story is all about.

A story has no beginning or end; arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead. Graham Greene—The End of the Affair.

Seems particularly apt from a writer whose major characters usually couldn’t remember their pasts, or were running from it, and rarely knew where they were headed.

“Take my camel, dear,” said my Aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass.
Rose Macaulay’s The Towers of Trebizond.

Never heard of the book or author, but love the line.

“The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children’s games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up.” — The Napoleon of Notting Hill – G. K. Chesterton

It takes a humble and honest writer to acknowledge that the world of the imagination is essentially an immature one.

"In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly-fishing”
A River Runs through it—Norman Maclean

Right from the beginning, you know it won’t be about any family you grew up in.

“There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.” — Voyage of the Dawn Treader – C. S. Lewis

A bit snarky, but he’s got my interest.

One summer afternoon Mrs. Oedipa Maas came home from a Tupperware party whose hostess had put perhaps too much kirsch in the fondue to find that she, Oedipa, had been named executor, or she supposed executrix, of the estate of one Pierce Inverarity, a California real estate mogul who had once lost two million dollars in his spare time but still had assets numerous and tangled enough to make the job of sorting it all out more than honorary. The Crying of Lot 49- Thomas Pynchon,

Sorry it went on so long, but I did stop at the first period. And some people wonder why Pynchon isn’t more popular.

I have never begun a novel with more misgiving. - W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor's Edge

Hmm, I guess some days you feel it and some days you don’t.


The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new. Samuel Beckett—Murphy

I love it. Makes me wish Beckett had tried his hand at some hard-boiled noir.

“Call me Ishmael.” Moby Dick. Herman Melville

I know what I said up top, but couldn’t leave it out after my Melville adventures of last year.

“We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.” Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Hunter S. Thompson

And that’s pretty much the last sober observation in the book.

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Anna Karenina. Leo Tolstoy

Such a cliché that one tends to forget how great it is.

“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect."
The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka

And the debate rages on as to whether the word should be insect, or vermin, or monster, or cockroach, or bug, or ….

This is the saddest story I have ever heard. - Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier

Pedestrian at best, but hard to resist cause it’s almost like a challenge to find out if you agree.

You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Has anyone else ever opened a book with an advertisement for a previous one?

AND NOW SOME ENDINGS…

Are there any questions? –Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

None from me.

Ah! Vanitas Vanitatum! which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied ?—Come, children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out Vanity Fair --William Makepeace Thackeray

Guess it helps to know the book, but I love that (like Chesterton) Thackeray regards his readers as children, and that all that has come before was simply a puppet show.

"The wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws but Max stepped into his private boat and waved good-bye and sailed back over a year and in and out of weeks and through a day and into the night of his very own room where he found his supper waiting for him- and it was still hot."
- Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

Give the man his due. How many great painters can write like that?

“Mama died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know.”
The Stranger—Albert Camus

And existentially speaking, it really doesn’t matter.

"Columbus too thought he was a flop, probably, when they sent him back in chains. Which didn't prove there was no America." The Adventures of Augie March-- Saul Bellow

I think Bellow always thought of himself as a great American explorer as well, in his own disillusioned, ambivalent and masochistic way.

"The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the utmost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast sky — seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness."
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad

Kind of corny to end a book with words from the title, but somehow it works here—since you feel like you’ve been waiting all book long to hear them said.

Go, my book, and help destroy the world as it is. –Russell Banks, Continental Drift (1985)

A great personal favorite book, so I’m biased. The line doesn’t really stand on its own…but again, I’m biased.


And Openers and Closers from the same book:


Opener: “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”

Ending: He loved Big Brother."

1984 George Orwell

Perfect.

Opener: It was love at first sight. The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain he fell madly in love with him.

Ending: "The knife came down, missing him by inches, and he took off."

Catch-22-- Joseph Heller

I like that the closer sounds just like a good opener.

Opener: I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me

Ending: L--d! said my mother, what is all this story about?—— A COCK and a BULL, said Yorick——And one of the best of its kind I ever heard. –

Tristram Shandy Laurence Sterne

Almost makes you want to read it again. I said almost.

Opening: “First the colors. Then the humans. That’s usually how I see things.”

Ending: “I am haunted by humans."

The Book Thief, Markus Zusak

Considering that the omniscient narrator is Death itself, those are pretty effective bookends.


SO BAD IT'S GOOD.


Charles Schultz made it famous when he had Snoopy begin all his writings from the top of his doghouse with: "It was a dark and stormy night..."


But it was Lord Bulwer-Lytton who began his 1830 novel, "Paul Clifford, with:

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents -- except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scenelies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

So bad, it inspired The Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest.
I looked it up and had fun reading some of the entries. This was my favorite:

The countdown had stalled at 'T' minus 69 seconds when Desiree, the first female ape to go up in space, winked at me slyly and pouted her thick, rubbery lips unmistakably -- the first of many such advances during what
would prove to be the longest, and most memorable, space voyage of my career.
-- Winning sentence, 1985 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest.


The Old Man and the Sea.

Call me crazy, but I’m convinced that Hemingway didn’t write a word of it. Or at least I would like to believe that. Although the innovative master had his occasional off days and off books and off decades—I don’t think he ever created anything so unrelentingly unreadable as this very fishy fish tale. It was a painful revelation when I went back and read Catcher in the Rye and had to fight a gag reflex with nearly every sentence, but the saga of Old Santiago as told by the once formidable Heavyweight Champ of the Lost Generation surpassed even Salinger for “aren’t I special” pretension.
Exhibit A:

"Thank you," the old man said. He was too simple to wonder when he had attained humility. But he knew he had attained it and he knew it was not disgraceful and it carried no loss of true pride.

Do we need an Exhibit B?

But I’m not here to throw stones—any more than I already have…I only bring up old Papa H. to let you know that...

The 1985 winner of the Eighth International Imitation Hemingway Competition was Woody’s brother Peter!

Peter (in action on left) is a distinguished journalist /author/ NY Times Columnist/Editor and like his brother Woody, a longtime (going back to pre-consciousness) friend of Ellen and all those other Long Gilanders I spoke about way back when this blog began.



The two books pictured here are terrific—and for the record, he doesn’t even know I’m writing about him, so rest assured, there is no collusion going on here. Besides, if all my readers were to buy both books, his take (minus my commission) would't buy him a pack of gum.

Here’s Peter’s Bad Hemingway contest winning entry—beating out 2450 other competitors.

We were young and our happiness dazzled us with its strength.
But there was also a terrible betrayal that lay within me like a MerleHaggard song at a French restaurant. ...I could not tell the girl about the woman of the tollway, of her milk white BMW and her Jordache smile. There had been a fight. I had punched her boyfriend, who fought the mechanical bulls. Everyone told him, "You ride the bull, senor. You do not fight it." But he was lean and tough like a bad rib-eye and he fought the bull. And then he fought me. And when we finished there were no winners, just men doing what men must do. ..."Stop the car," the girl said. There was a look of terrible sadness in her eyes. She knew about the woman of the tollway. I knew not how. I started to speak, but she raised an arm and spoke with a quiet and peace I will never forget."I do not ask for whom's the tollway belle," she said, "the tollway belle's for thee."The next morning our youth was a memory, and our happiness was a lie. Life is like a bad margarita with good tequila, I thought as I poured whiskey onto my granola and faced a new day.

If Peter were a few decades older, I’d suspect him as Papa’s Ghost-Writer on Old Man and The Sea, but then again, I don't think even Peter could have been good enough to be that bad.