So, you think "We Will Rock You" is what they played at medieval tournaments? You think Chaucer had that on his playlist? Think again.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Wumpick and the Wimpy Apostolate
[On occasion, when I produce some fictional missive or
dialogue for this blog, I feel it necessary to remind my readers that the
persons represented bear no resemblance to other persons, real. (Their resemblance to other fictional
persons is a matter of course.) In the
present instance I think it prudent to reiterate for the sake of my friends
that the patient is NOT me, nor her state of mind mine. What relation my habits of thought bear to
those of the other characters in this drama, it should—even to those who
know me well—be wholly unnecessary to state. ~Saturday.]
My dear Wumpick,
Monday, October 29, 2012
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
"Lazy"
Sooooo, grad school ... it brings out strange things in the heart of man (or woman). Tendencies of which one wotted not before. First I find myself relating to Hamlet, and now this:
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Wumpick and the Opposite Job
My Dear Wumpick,
So, your patient is dissatisfied with her current situation? Certain duties attendant upon her state in life, or at any rate, upon her present occupations, she finds annoying? More damnably yet, she finds them—boring? Boredom, you know, is the ultimate torture conceivable by the mind of modern Western man. This only goes to show that modern Western man has a very deficient concept of torture. Of course, in this as in all errors the humans make, there is an inkling of truth. There are from the human standpoint many and far more painful tortures than boredom; but from our standpoint there are few more effective. You have heard the American phrase, “The idle brain is the devil's playground.” There is a great deal of truth in that. Certain men’s vices can tempt them to certain sins; boredom can tempt almost anyone to almost anything.
So, your patient is dissatisfied with her current situation? Certain duties attendant upon her state in life, or at any rate, upon her present occupations, she finds annoying? More damnably yet, she finds them—boring? Boredom, you know, is the ultimate torture conceivable by the mind of modern Western man. This only goes to show that modern Western man has a very deficient concept of torture. Of course, in this as in all errors the humans make, there is an inkling of truth. There are from the human standpoint many and far more painful tortures than boredom; but from our standpoint there are few more effective. You have heard the American phrase, “The idle brain is the devil's playground.” There is a great deal of truth in that. Certain men’s vices can tempt them to certain sins; boredom can tempt almost anyone to almost anything.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Used to Be
So I was driving home Sunday night, listening to 88.5 FM as usual, and heard that Andy Williams had died. Aside from the fact that he was a good singer, in the mode of Bing Crosby or Dean Martin, I knew (and still know) next to nothing about him. But Ed Walker played a couple pieces of his that started me thinking.
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Saturday, October 6, 2012
The Bird Had It
Every weekday for the last couple months, every since I moved to the city where the night lights hide the stars, I've had to walk past an Obama campaign office. I've mused over the little figures of the man and the woman, spray painted onto ye olde style sidewalk in blue and pink, and stylized in that oh-so-familiar way; and I've wondered whether they came with the campaign or were inherited from an earlier occupant of the office. I've side-stepped to avoid the chalked arrows (also pink and blue, if less highly stylized—an arrow is to begin with that much less complex than a human being to begin with) and chuckled inwardly when the fall rains washed them out every evening after dark. The arrows lead from the street back into the alley where the office door is located and, along with their obvious ephemorality and with the presence of the little man and the little woman, called to mind the story of Hansel and Gretel. It was hard not just to taste the windows of the office; I suspected them of being sweet, and I was quite sure that the copy machine made gingerbread men.
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Monday, October 1, 2012
Cross My Heart
There is a certain careful school of thought regarding promises. It takes somewhat the same tack as that advised by the old man who bade his interrogator ask him no questions lest he hear lies. Its adherents are the people who RSVP "maybe" on Facebook (guilty! guilty! I am guilty!).
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