And Now, for Something Completely Different

So, you think "We Will Rock You" is what they played at medieval tournaments?  You think Chaucer had that on his playlist?  Think again.

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,

Have You Looked Outside Today?

Fortunately, our house is on a hill.

It Is Cruelty to the Innocent ...

... not to punish the guilty.

When Only Handel Will Do

Yes, you've seen these folks before!

Truth Has a Handsome Countenance ...

... but torn garments.

"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:

If You Didn't Come Here from NCR, Go Right Back

And read about Justice Scalia.

Cast Thy Bread Upon the Waters ...

... for thou shalt find it after many days.

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.

Unavailable

That was the status of the house I was looking at.

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.

The Gown is Hers That Wears It ...

... and the world is his that enjoys it.

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.

With Certain Kinds of Awsomeness ...

... no introductory comment or apology is necessary.

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!).