Posted on March 2nd, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Reading Classics, Books, Old Posts.
I'm three-fourths of the way through I Capture the Castle. It really isn't that much like Cold Comfort Farm, in my view, except for the charm of the narrative voice; it's not at all a farce, mainly. It's a romance, a good one, and right now it's awfully sad, though I trust it doesn't remain so.
(. . .)
Just finished I Capture the Castle. It's heartbreaking. I didn't expect that. It's a marvelous book, but I'm not sure I'm ever going to want to reread it.
(Note: It's eleven years. I remember it as a marvelous book, but indeed I haven't reread it. Maybe I will; I'm very forgetful now.)
Posted on March 2nd, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Comedy, Old Posts.
(My entry in a "literary commercial" contest.)
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say
'Think well upon your future:
Your life will end someday.
Stash pearls away and rubies,
Embrace security.'
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
'A State Farm Family Policy
Was never bought in vain;
'Tis paid in small installments,
And buys you easy sleep
Till you are one-and-ninety
And buried six feet deep.'
Posted on February 28th, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Reading Classics, Writers, Old Posts.
A Wrinkle in Time is explicitly religious all over the place, but it doesn't have the veneer of priggishness and cold self-righteousness that ruins parts of the Narnia books. L'Engle's mood is more pitying than judgmental. On the other hand, she treats evil as a force more than a choice, and while Lewis's opposite treatment is more judgmental, it also has more to do with the way evil actually works, in my opinion. I'd rather re-read L'Engle's books, but a lot of the reason the religious message slides right by, in my opinion, is that it's not grounded in the actions of the characters. In the Narnia books, Edmund falls into evil by choice, and is redeemed by choice (as is Eustace, while Susan is cold-heartedly damned). In A Wrinkle in Time, Charles falls into evil because he is possessed by the evil force while trying to save his father. That's scary, but it's also unreal in a way that Edmund's choices are not.
Posted on February 27th, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Games, Old Posts.
The idea that "chess is relatively easy" is very recent, and very nearly postdates the crucial match. Just ten years ago, it wasn't difficult to find folks in the AI debate asserting that computers would never beat the best humans at chess.
We don't have a problem with machines being stronger or faster than us, but the idea that we can program computers to exceed our mental processes is deeply disturbing. Yet the notion that this is "impossible" is essentially mystical: it insists that there is more to human thought than the physical workings of the brain, and hence can never be artificially created.
When computers start making original contributions to philosophy, there will be folks maintaining that philosophy is relatively easy.
Posted on February 25th, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Books, Old Posts.
I've noticed this in myself and others: We can forgive the things we liked as children, and maybe even still enjoy them, because we didn't know any better and there's an innocent joy in returning to that total open-mindedness. But we can't forgive the things we enjoyed as adolescents, because we were beginning to try to be adults, often self-importantly, and it can be excruciatingly embarrassing to be reminded of what we thought was deep and mature then.
Posted on February 23rd, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Media, Old Posts.
If advertising were as insidiously, relentlessly effective as all that, we'd all be automatons. (Ah, but how do you know you're not?) We wouldn't be so much like our parents (but who made your parents?), we wouldn't, so many of us, have very much the values of the people who raised and taught us (but who programmed them?). If advertising is so effective, why do we resist it? (Don't make me laugh.) If advertising is so effective, why can't they make us buy anything they want, regardless of quality? (You think you have your own taste, desires, free will? Get real.)
I've read The Hidden Persuaders, and I probably have more interest in what makes advertising work than is healthy for me, just as I am interested in the rhetoric of persuasive (as opposed to truthful) argument. But, with all due respect, most anti-advertising rants I read (closely related to anti-television rants) strike me as a species of conspiracy theory. If someone wants to say there are strings attached to my limbs and those of my children, I can see for myself that it's not so; a persuasive voice is not a string, and the contentiousness, irascibility, and simple desire to please one's own self will continue to confound and frustrate sellers with nothing good to sell, no matter how sneaky they are.
And I've never met an adult where you couldn't guess a lot more about their parents, schooling, and religious upbringing than what television they watched and what advertising they were exposed to.
Posted on February 20th, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Old Posts.
I passed a poster today put up by PETA: "Thanksgiving is Murder on Turkeys." This is one of those moronic political ads that so far as I can tell is intended entirely to give a nice smug feeling to people who already agree, since I can't imagine anyone finding it a revelation and having their mind changed about Thanksgiving: "You mean, they kill birds? THIS TURKEY WAS ONCE A FREE, HAPPY, THRIVING CREATURE, A FRIEND TO MAN, CRUELLY CUT DOWN IN ITS PRIME SO MONSTERS LIKE ME CAN SINK OUR ANIMAL TEETH INTO ITS ONCE-QUIVERING FLESH?? --I am so ashamed."
Posted on February 19th, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Old Posts.
My big problem with driving on LSD is that inevitable horrifying realization that I can't drive.
Posted on February 19th, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Untruths, Old Posts.
Brad Jones solved the Trees of Mystery.
You know that creepy feeling that someone's looking at you in the dark? Brad Jones.
Brad Jones is both singular and plural.
Brad Jones disdains the title "producer," preferring to be listed as "mystic wagga."
The Tufted Bean-Warblers have declined to offer arbitration to Brad Jones.
Brad Jones Swallows return to Pensacola every year around Christmas break to party and crap all over everything.
Give Brad Jones a fish and you've fed him for a day. Teach Brad Jones to fish and you're rid of him forever.
The correct plural of Brad Jone is actually Brad Jona.
Brad Jones keeps losing his lab assistants because he insists upon referring to them as "my amanuensis."
Whenever Brad Jones sees Counting Crows on tv his eyes get big and he yells "It's Doctor Jones! Doctor Jones!" until someone changes the channel and he subsides, muttering.
Brad Jones pronounces "infrared" to rhyme with "dared”, to the confusion of his students, readers, subscribers, followers, sidekicks, lackeys, and heirs and assigns.
Teaching Brad Jones is now optional in Kansas. Scientists worry that this will result in Brad Jones growing up pig-ignorant.
You know that really annoying conductor on the 1 train with the same "clever" patter every day? Brad Jones.
63% of Americans can't distinguish between Brad Jones and New Lemon Pledge.
Can you imagine Thursday nights on NBC without Brad Jones? You can't.
Brad Jones has had to be legally enjoined from walking up to small children and informing them grimly that there is no itsy-bitsy spider.
Brad Jones could have had a decent career in competitive jacks had he been able to say "sixies" without loss of muscular coordination.
Brad Jones is a card-carrying card-carrier.
Brad Jones didn't mean to rain on your parade. He can't help it; he's a low-pressure air mass sweeping down from Canada.
Brad Jones's given name is not Bradley; it is just Brad. However, his surname is actually Jonesley.
Have you heard Brad Jones sing the high notes in "Witchy Woman"? Not unless you're a dog.
Brad Jones isn't talking. He is, however, emitting a seemingly organized series of squawks and beeps that experts are attempting to crack.
"Adapt and improve," says Brad Jones, with clenched teeth and jaws.
Sometimes Brad Jones stops dead in the middle of the street and cries out "Christ! what an imagination I've got!"
Posted on February 18th, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Movies.
"This early in the film, we're still asking such logical questions. Later, the despair sets in."
--review of Buddy Buddy
Posted on February 17th, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Stuff, Untruths, Old Posts.
Brad Jones rips the veil from the nun inside you.
Brad Jones offers a free lunch to all Libertarians.
Brad Jones could feed a family of five for weeks if they'd goddam sit still.
Brad Jones feels chummy today. Look out here he comes!
Brad Jones is demeaning to grubby inconsequential people who smell bad.
Brad Jones conquered half of Europe, but gave it back when a sad little girl cried for Andorra.
There is no "Brad Jones" in "teamwork."
Brad Jones had his Hidden Daffies surgically removed by Dr. Zizmor's Laser of Love.
Round up Brad Jones.
Brad Jones continued his diligent work on the four color mop problem.
Brad Jones has had it with everyone trying to keep up with him.
"Brad" is short for "Hmmmmmmm-brad."
You know how sometimes this topic shows you nothing new for a whole day through several passes, then suddenly it has a dozen messages going back several hours? Brad Jones.
Brad Jones sits in front of a set tuned to SCANALYZER orbiting on triptine and saying over and over "Christ what an imagination I've got!"
Play it, Sam. Play "Brad Jones."
Posted on February 15th, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Comedy, Untruths, Old Posts.
Brad Jones was actually born Brad Bowie, but changed his name to avoid confusion with Brad Buoy, the inventor of the liferaft.
Brad Jones is feared in seven languages.
Brad Jones is responsible for all ska band names. He is still looking for bands willing to shoulder the names "Ska of the Antarctic," "The Skashank Redemption," and "F. Ska Fitzgerald."
A careless whisper of "Brad Jones" in the wrong alley could lead to the death of innocents.
Brad Jones will be down from 5 to 6AM for routine maintenance, following which it will no longer be permissible to disturb his routine.
If Brad Jones had been born a girl, his parents were going to name him Cleopatra.
Brad Jones plays without a cup. His opponents think it just makes him scarier.
If Brad Jones were granted three wishes, he'd wish for three more, but only three, because hey, be reasonable.
Remember that to Brad Jones and his people, a smile is an expression of hostility. If you wish to express your affection for Brad Jones, rub the top of his head.
If Brad Jones could only tell stories, the stories he could tell.
Brad Jones shot the sixth, seventh, and eighth Beatles.
Brad Jones is my brother, yet he's heavy.
In time, everything will be true of Brad Jones.
Posted on February 14th, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Comedy, Untruths, Old Posts.
There are more Brazilians in Brussells than there are in Sao Paulo.
There are forty-seven words for "Abba" in Swedish.
Shouting "Bronco Nagurski!" while leaping from the shower to bed in a single bound is responsible for 90% of accidents in the home.
Left-handed people are disproportionately represented in Benetton ads.
Posted on February 14th, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Lists, Words, Comedy, Untruths, Old Posts.
I taught Madonna to eat, sleep, drink, breathe, ride trains, open envelopes, file taxes late without penalty, drop heavy objects from tall buildings, execute perfect triple axels, throw darts accurately with either hand, compensate for the distorting effects of rear-view mirrors, cheat, fly (with or without wings), sprint backwards, extract revenge with no chance of prosecution but with full knowledge of the victim, open child-proof packages effortlessly, play accordion while retaining her friends, tighten belts, loosen sockets, chew gum in a beguiling working-class manner, groan convincingly, belch like a lady, construct origami pets of every genus, pop corn in her mouth, lead oppressed south americans to freedom, defend a field hockey goal mouth, swim, dropkick, shimmy in a corset, tap the zeitgeist in her dreams, and die in her sleep.
In return, she taught me to relax. Ahhhhhhhh.
Posted on February 12th, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Old Posts.
Tattered heads rot under shabby hats.
Haggard rags urge septic heaven's thunder.
Rusted, useless, spent; hearses trample hearts.
Until she hears, tomorrow harbors rats.
Severed hooves turn hobbled roses under.
Herpetic tumors hunger, rancid urine spurts;
Turgid, hollow, rasping, ulcerous, sodden hate.
Utter nothing; candor loses ever.
Never cry; laughter eases umbrage.
Cut losses; exile undoes need.
Late enough; urgency needs change.
Ever upward, nameless, careless, lost;
Unburden. Naked, clawless, live. Escape.
Posted on February 12th, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Reading Classics, Writers, Books, Old Posts.
The Genocides is an underrated book. It was a paperback original, his first novel before he had acquired much reputation (it was published in 1965), and his next two novels were undistinguished (I think Camp Concentration is the fourth, not counting work-for-hire stuff). The Genocides was also vilified by a couple of reviewers, including Algis Budrys, who dismissed it as a J.G. Ballard imitation (and we were all supposed to know how we felt about that back then; the war between the traditionalists and the radicals was already beginning to heat up). But it's a compact and neat story of collapse, and the character delineation is superb. Disch has said that to his mind, the appeal of the disaster novel was the implacability, and his disaster wasn't going to be diluted by any kind of rescue or redemption. Even so, it isn't bleak, exactly; the narrative follows the characters and their emotions and tribulations like a camera, but there is something about it that feels disengaged, so the story isn't sad or tragic or even bracing; it's just there. In that sense it is like Ballard, except Ballard's disaster novels tended to suck all human emotion out of everything except one character's interaction with his disaster.
Posted on February 12th, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Old Posts.
I saw a skateboarding dog on the way home; now that's a cheery sight. Using it more like a scooter, three paws on the board and one pushing, dog never got on and just rode, it did waver and swerve an awful lot and ended its adventure by plowing into a parked car, but of course one hates to be too critical: the dog is riding a skateboard.
We should all aspire to be dogs on skateboards.
Posted on February 11th, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Old Posts.
This story has a happy ending.
Several weeks ago the building of my friends Patrick and Teresa acquired a stray dog. She walked in as though she belonged there, and by the time a neighborhood search had conclusively turned up no one with a lost dog of her description, she had thoroughly ingratiated herself with the residents. She splits time between at least two of the apartments, and is now named Blossom.
Tonight a bunch of us went up to the roof to watch the firewroks over the east river. Blossom came up too, and she didn't seem scared by the noise, just trotted around in the heat with her tongue out, apparently having a fine time. We lost track of her. After a while, I heard, in the distance, several rooftops away, "Whose dog is that?" I was a little worried about her being so far away, so I got up to see where she was. I couldn't see her. Susan noticed me looking around and said "Are you looking for Blossom?" "Yeah," I said, "I just heard those people way over there wondering whose dog she was. But I don't see her." We both walked over to the next roof and peered around, but neither of us, I think, wanted to make a big deal of searching for her; there was only so far she could go. "I'm sure she's okay," I said stupidly. "I'm sure you're right," said Susan. We knew Blossom was a very social dog, and was probably just hanging with some folks. We turned back to the fireworks.
A couple minutes later a young woman walked up to us. "Is that your dog?" she said. No dog was in sight, but we knew it must be Blossom; we said yes. "She's fallen off the roof," said the young woman. We stared at her. We were five floors up. "She's fallen off the roof??" I said. "What, to the ground?" We started moving, slowly at first, the way people do when they want to think that something isn't really very bad. Then I started running across the roofs. I heard the woman say to Susan, "No, down to another roof. To the church." I knew that building, about six roofs away; I couldn't remember whether it was one story or two storeys shorter.
As I skipped from roof to roof, all the groups of people knew what was going on, and several people asked me if it was my dog. "Yes," I said shortly, not wanting to slow down for more explanation. People closed in behind me. I reached the end of the roofs, and looked down at the church roof: one storey down. Blossom looked up at me and whined. Then, thank god, she ran around in a circle, and I could see she wasn't limping or noticeably injured in any way. I had the presence of mind to turn and yell over my shoulder, "She's okay," which no one had bothered doing. Then I thought about getting down to Blossom, and what I could do when I got there. It was about a twelve foot drop, which I thought I could manage okay, but she was already spooked and running around, and she kept dashing to an edge and looking over. I talked to her and she would look up for a second, then start running around again. After a few seconds Susan arrived, and as soon as she started talking to Blossom the dog stayed in one place trying to climb the wall. Someone on the roof we were on said we could go down their stairs and someone from the church building said we could go up theirs; we decided that Susan would stay and talk to Blossom while I went over to the church roof.
This turned out to be a little more complicated than we thought, since no one was waiting downstairs to let me into the building, and no one responded to buzzing. I went over to the fire escape to see whether I could jump up to it. I couldn't. I went back to the building and pounded on the door until someone grumpily let me in; when I quickly explained what was going on, she let me go through her apartment to the fire escape -- the door to the roof was locked -- and I climbed up it, knowing I could never get Blossom down it, becuase it was ladders, not stairs.
I got to the roof, and two guys were there; they'd probably jumped down. Blossom was spooked again, but she came over to me right away and started bumping me. I sat down and she climbed on to my lap. Susan was still leaning over the rooftop above; I told her we couldn't get the dog down the stairs or the fire escape. A guy up on the higher roof said he could bring a ladder; we decided that the the three of us on the church roof could hand Blossom from person to person up the ladder -- none of us felt confident that we could carry fifty pounds or so of dog up the ladder by ourself if she decided to panic.
While we waited for the ladder, I patted Blossom and talked to her, and she settled down. I took her head in my hands and said that was the most damn fool stunt I'd heard of a dog pulling in ages. She licked my face. I told her I was missing the fireworks. She licked my face again. After a few minutes in which my face was licked about every ten seconds, the ladder arrived, and after putting Blossom on her leash for whatever psychological value that would have, I handed her to the first guy, and he handed her to the second guy, and he handed her to Susan, and she was up to the proper roof in a few seconds without a hitch.
We ended up with about thirty new acquaintances from the surrounding buildings; when I left the building a few ours later to go home, a group of folks on the street asked me if the dog was okay. I assured them she was. They all think the dog is mine now; I suppose she is now, a little bit.
Posted on February 10th, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Old Posts.
(Answering “What is your comfort food?”)
This tuna-pea-pasta casserole on english muffins thing my mom makes. We called it Shit on a Shingle, despite the fact that it bears little resemblance to what the US Army calls Shit on a Shingle. Actually my circumspect parents couldn't quite bring themselves to say "shit."
Once when I was deliriously sick, 104-degree fever & everything, and Ellie was desperate for something, anything that could make me feel a little better, she asked me what food I would most like in the world, and in the childlike state that men inevitably revert to in illness, I pathetically mumbled, "my mom's shit on a shingle." When Ellie had recovered from this request, she called my dad to get the recipe, which he dutifully retrieved from my mom; then he said, mildly, "Of course, in this house we call it Bleep on a Shingle."
Posted on February 10th, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Old Posts.
(Answering "if you could possess any one supernatural ability, what would it be?")
I'd like the ability to set myself inexorably on the road to getting everything I want and need, and then forget I did that to myself so I could enjoy it all without knowing I'd cheated.