what i learned in high school
i was impelled to reminisce about my high school years upon hearing on NPR that todays high school curriculum's were so diverse across the nation
that it was difficult to devise a test to fairly measure the knowledge of potential college applicants. the story went on to say that until the counter culture flourished in the late 60's and early 70's what was taught was very similar across the nation. i guess the black power, women liberation, cultural relativism and the peace movements forever altered the landscape of high school studies.
consequently i came up with the idea of creating a cd compilation of music i listened to and excerpts of books that influenced me during my high school years(1962-1965).
included are cultural influences both inside and outside of school from church to tv and the movies.
the playlist:
1 charles dickens - it was the best of times(A Tale of Two Cities) : 58
2. The Beatles -- Yesterday (2 05)
3. mark twain -- jim bakers blue jay yarn (1.27}
4. Sha Na Na -- The Birds and the Bees (2:10)
5. john howard griffin - black like me (1:28)
6. Bob Dylan -- Blowin' in the Wind (2:49)
7. mark twain -- huck finn (:37)
8. harper lee -- to kill a mockingbird (3:10)
9. Paul Robeson -- Ol Man River (4:19)
10. robert frost - stopping by the woods (:58)
11 Gerry & The Pacemakers - Ferry Cross The Mersey (2:25)
12 shakesphere -- caesar eulogy (2:30)
13. The Mamas & the Papas -- California Dreamin' (2:40)
14. mary chase - harvey (3:31)
15 Petula Clark - Downtown (3:05)
16 Judy Collins - Amazing Grace (4:07)
17. st. matthew - sermon on the mount (2:09)
18. The Lettermen --1 Believe (2:11)
19. victor hugo --les miserables (2:17)
20. Shirley Jones -- You'll Never Walk Alone [From Carousel] (1:45)
21. edward fizgerald - rubaiyat of omar khayyam (1:44)
22. The Beatles -- Michelle (2:42)
23. The Beatles - Can't Buy Me Love (2:12)
24. george eliot -- silas marner (1:43)
25. Jackie DeShannon - What The World Needs Now Is Love 3:08
26. Barbara Lewis - Baby I'm Yours (2:33)
27. Barbara Cook - Till There Was You [From The Music Man] i2 4cigh
28. The Rolling Stones -- (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction (3:44)
29. shakesphere -- hamlet soliloquy (2:14)
30. Peter & Gordon - A World Without Love (2.40)
31. leo tolstoy - war and peace (1:30)
32 Barry McGuire -- Eve of Destruction (3:36)
Several of the books were assigned readings and some were mentioned in classes but many were discovered by unfettered curiosity outside the confines of
the school. Most of the music was heard on top-forty radio or on albums. I was especially fond of a record by the Lettermen of show tunes. Though musically
inept I was sometimes allowed to sing in the church choir at Parkview Baptist Church where I learned many hymns. My favorite being Amazing Grace. My senior
year my class did a performance of The Music Man by which I was amazed. It made a lasting impression.
Though I entitled the compilation What I Learned in High school it's not so much what i learned but what i experienced and had a lasting educational effect.
Its what was thrown up against the blank canvas of my mind and stuck like the splashed hues of a jackson pollock painting. A fragmented abstraction of memories
in a quilted undecipherable pattern.
In the 9th grade I remember reading Hamlet in Mr. Hadley's English class and the challenge of struggling to make sense of the weird words and then
the feeling of satisfaction in understanding and enjoying the rich language. In the summer after my sophomore year i read To Kill a Mockingbird as i laid
in bed with bronchitis coughing my way thru the pages emotionally engrossed. It was in high school i developed a love of film. Largely due to TV and
Saturday Night at the Movies where I was exhilarated to watch War and Peace with Henry Fonda as Pierre. It inspired me to read thre book my senior year.
There was also The Vikings with Tony Curtis and Kirk Douglas, Spartacus, and the Mountain with Spencer Tracy. There was of course the Beatles. my younger
sisters played their music continually after they were on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964. (which we watched every Sunday night).
There are many moments that I cringe to remember. It was four short years long ago, four years largely wasted during which I abandoned any dreams of
fame or fortune and all ambition to be anyone special. It was then I realized that I was just your average bloke. With a bit of torment i reluctantly accepted my
fate to be unique just like everybody else. That's just the way life is i learned. That's the way the snowflakes fall, that the way the cookies crumble.
I suspect that your compilation would be much different than mine even if you were my classmate but if you are so inclined and make one I'd love to see it.
If you would like a copy of my cd let me know- Normally its $99.99 but if you call now you can get the entire cd for only $9.99 (only 999 1 penny payments)
but wait... theres more....
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Thursday, May 1, 2008
reading
The question i asked last month regarding "do you read fiction or non-fiction" didn't
seem to generate much response. Of the 4 responses i did get 2 said they try for a
balance and 2 said they prefer nonfiction. i seem to prefer fiction in that last year i read 21 fiction and 8 nonfiction books. i found a couple of interesting polls on the internet that reading is not dead. the following is from a Harris poll:
"For years, people have been crying about the death of the book. While reading books may be declining, Americans are reading. Just one in ten (9%) say they typically read no books in an average year. About one-quarter (23%) read between 1 and 3 books, while one in five (19%) read between 4 and 6 books and 13 percent typically read between 7 and 10 books. And, over one-third (37%) of Americans say they read more then ten books in an average year.
There are certain groups who are more likely to read more than ten books in an average year. Looking at the generations, almost half (47%) of Matures (those aged 63 and older) say they read more than ten books compared to just one-third (33%) of Baby Boomers (those aged 44-62). Women are also more likely to read more than men – 44 percent of women read more than ten books a year compared to three in ten (29%) men. Candidates may not want to try books to reach their partisans, but they may be a good way to reach out to Independents"
a zogby poll examines whether what you like to read predicts your politics :
* Conservatives and liberals are more likely than moderates to read books.
* Liberals are almost twice as likely as conservatives to read
literary fiction (20% to 11%) and they're also more likely to read
science fiction/fantasy than moderates (13% to 8%).
* Moderates and conservatives favor mysteries and thrillers while
liberals (22%) and conservatives (20%) prefer books about politics and
current events.
* Liberals like non-fiction and fiction equally. Moderates and
conservatives prefer non-fiction.
* Moderates are more likely to read self-help books (7%) –
liberals are the least likely to read them (3%).
of course everyone i know falls outside any polling parameters.
Here is a list of the books i read in the past year:
FICTION
Blood Lure Nevada Barr
Skeleton Man tony Hillerman
Mission Song John Le Carre
One Good Turn Kate Atkinson
Arthur and George Julian Barnes
the Road Cormac McCarthy
Brooklyn Follies Paul Auster
What is What Dave Eggers
Echomaker Richard Powers
American Outrage Tim Green
HouseKeeping Maryanne Robinson
No Country for Old Men Cormac McCarthy
Bridge of Sighs Richard Russo
The Book Thief Markus Zusak
A Thousand Slendid Suns Khaled Hosseini
The Reluctant Fundamentalist Mohsin Hamid
The Appeal John Grisham
A Soldier of the Great War Mark Helprin
A Free Life Ha Jin
The Yiddish Policeman's Union Michael Chabon
Everyman Philip Roth
NONFICTION
The God Delusion Richard Dawkins
Into the Wild Jon Krakauer
Clapton Eric Clapton
The Beatles Bob Spitz
MoneyBall Michael Lewis
Truth and Beauty Ann Pacthett
Heart Breaking Work of Staggering Genius Dave Eggers
seem to generate much response. Of the 4 responses i did get 2 said they try for a
balance and 2 said they prefer nonfiction. i seem to prefer fiction in that last year i read 21 fiction and 8 nonfiction books. i found a couple of interesting polls on the internet that reading is not dead. the following is from a Harris poll:
"For years, people have been crying about the death of the book. While reading books may be declining, Americans are reading. Just one in ten (9%) say they typically read no books in an average year. About one-quarter (23%) read between 1 and 3 books, while one in five (19%) read between 4 and 6 books and 13 percent typically read between 7 and 10 books. And, over one-third (37%) of Americans say they read more then ten books in an average year.
There are certain groups who are more likely to read more than ten books in an average year. Looking at the generations, almost half (47%) of Matures (those aged 63 and older) say they read more than ten books compared to just one-third (33%) of Baby Boomers (those aged 44-62). Women are also more likely to read more than men – 44 percent of women read more than ten books a year compared to three in ten (29%) men. Candidates may not want to try books to reach their partisans, but they may be a good way to reach out to Independents"
a zogby poll examines whether what you like to read predicts your politics :
* Conservatives and liberals are more likely than moderates to read books.
* Liberals are almost twice as likely as conservatives to read
literary fiction (20% to 11%) and they're also more likely to read
science fiction/fantasy than moderates (13% to 8%).
* Moderates and conservatives favor mysteries and thrillers while
liberals (22%) and conservatives (20%) prefer books about politics and
current events.
* Liberals like non-fiction and fiction equally. Moderates and
conservatives prefer non-fiction.
* Moderates are more likely to read self-help books (7%) –
liberals are the least likely to read them (3%).
of course everyone i know falls outside any polling parameters.
Here is a list of the books i read in the past year:
FICTION
Blood Lure Nevada Barr
Skeleton Man tony Hillerman
Mission Song John Le Carre
One Good Turn Kate Atkinson
Arthur and George Julian Barnes
the Road Cormac McCarthy
Brooklyn Follies Paul Auster
What is What Dave Eggers
Echomaker Richard Powers
American Outrage Tim Green
HouseKeeping Maryanne Robinson
No Country for Old Men Cormac McCarthy
Bridge of Sighs Richard Russo
The Book Thief Markus Zusak
A Thousand Slendid Suns Khaled Hosseini
The Reluctant Fundamentalist Mohsin Hamid
The Appeal John Grisham
A Soldier of the Great War Mark Helprin
A Free Life Ha Jin
The Yiddish Policeman's Union Michael Chabon
Everyman Philip Roth
NONFICTION
The God Delusion Richard Dawkins
Into the Wild Jon Krakauer
Clapton Eric Clapton
The Beatles Bob Spitz
MoneyBall Michael Lewis
Truth and Beauty Ann Pacthett
Heart Breaking Work of Staggering Genius Dave Eggers
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
a question for readers
i recently read a review of a book of poems by laura kamasischke whose poems are
described as confessionally autobiographical like sylvia plath and robert lowell's
poems were in the 60's. the reviewer asks what should we read? who do we turn to
to help us understand our life? is it the fiction or non-fiction writer (or the poet). one writer has said that its experience we learn most from and that the fiction writer can create a story of internal and external events we can vicariously experience. and because "experience resists explanation" fiction comes closer to
the truth than non-fiction. who do you trust? the novelist or the journalist.
we might of turned to the poets in th 60's and 70's but in recent years its the memoirs that are getting the readers. there have been a couple of blantant examples
of memoirs full of lies as this quote points out (both highly touted by oprah before they were exposed as lies) :
"When James Frey approached publishers marketing his manuscript of “A Million Little Pieces” as fiction, none were interested. When he labeled it “memoir” Random House jumped.
Margaret Seltzer's excuse was that she really wanted to tell the stories of the life her gang-member ffriends lived, and she believed that they had a greater chance of being heard if she wrote them as her own story.
Seltzer and Frey both sold memoirs because that's what the publishers wanted. And the publishers wanted memoirs because readers crave them. Non-fiction books sell. Readers want the intimacy of a memoir and the sense of being allowed into another person's world – especially if that person has had a dramatic and harrowing life.
The process of memoir writing is fraught with the possibility of factual inaccuracy, being dependent as it is on memory and recollection. It is nearly impossible to guarantee that every detail of a creative non-fiction story is unquestionably accurate.
Still, readers are right to assume that memoirs are true, or at least as true as memory will allow."
(In her supposed memoir “Love and Consequences” (Riverhead Books, 2008), Margaret A. Jones writes about her life as a half-Native American, half-white girl growing up in a foster home in South Central Los Angeles. She describes her experiences as a drug-dealing gang member in L.A. watching friends and family die in gang violence.)
so my question to you is : what do you prefer fiction or non-fiction?
Kitchen Song by Laura Kasischke
The white bowls in the orderly
cupboards filled with nothing.
The sound
of applause in running water.
All those who've drowned in oceans, all
who've drowned in pools, in ponds, the small
family together in the car hit head on. The pantry
full of lilies, the lobsters scratching to get out of the pot, and God
being pulled across the heavens
in a burning car.
The recipes
like confessions.
The confessions like songs.
The sun. The bomb. The white
bowls in the orderly
cupboards filled with blood. I wanted
something simple, and domestic. A kitchen song.
They were just driving along. Dad
turned the radio off, and Mom
turned it back on.
described as confessionally autobiographical like sylvia plath and robert lowell's
poems were in the 60's. the reviewer asks what should we read? who do we turn to
to help us understand our life? is it the fiction or non-fiction writer (or the poet). one writer has said that its experience we learn most from and that the fiction writer can create a story of internal and external events we can vicariously experience. and because "experience resists explanation" fiction comes closer to
the truth than non-fiction. who do you trust? the novelist or the journalist.
we might of turned to the poets in th 60's and 70's but in recent years its the memoirs that are getting the readers. there have been a couple of blantant examples
of memoirs full of lies as this quote points out (both highly touted by oprah before they were exposed as lies) :
"When James Frey approached publishers marketing his manuscript of “A Million Little Pieces” as fiction, none were interested. When he labeled it “memoir” Random House jumped.
Margaret Seltzer's excuse was that she really wanted to tell the stories of the life her gang-member ffriends lived, and she believed that they had a greater chance of being heard if she wrote them as her own story.
Seltzer and Frey both sold memoirs because that's what the publishers wanted. And the publishers wanted memoirs because readers crave them. Non-fiction books sell. Readers want the intimacy of a memoir and the sense of being allowed into another person's world – especially if that person has had a dramatic and harrowing life.
The process of memoir writing is fraught with the possibility of factual inaccuracy, being dependent as it is on memory and recollection. It is nearly impossible to guarantee that every detail of a creative non-fiction story is unquestionably accurate.
Still, readers are right to assume that memoirs are true, or at least as true as memory will allow."
(In her supposed memoir “Love and Consequences” (Riverhead Books, 2008), Margaret A. Jones writes about her life as a half-Native American, half-white girl growing up in a foster home in South Central Los Angeles. She describes her experiences as a drug-dealing gang member in L.A. watching friends and family die in gang violence.)
so my question to you is : what do you prefer fiction or non-fiction?
Kitchen Song by Laura Kasischke
The white bowls in the orderly
cupboards filled with nothing.
The sound
of applause in running water.
All those who've drowned in oceans, all
who've drowned in pools, in ponds, the small
family together in the car hit head on. The pantry
full of lilies, the lobsters scratching to get out of the pot, and God
being pulled across the heavens
in a burning car.
The recipes
like confessions.
The confessions like songs.
The sun. The bomb. The white
bowls in the orderly
cupboards filled with blood. I wanted
something simple, and domestic. A kitchen song.
They were just driving along. Dad
turned the radio off, and Mom
turned it back on.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
arcade fire
recently i discovered a indie rock group from canada that i liked ( thanks to a friend who loaned me their newest cd Neon Bible). i found their lyrics to be magnetic (ie. they stuck rather than suck). than i remembered my favorite group during the 80's and
90's was Talking Heads a favorite song was Once in a Lifetime. i guess i haven't come so far. ...same as it ever was ...
Arcade Fire is an indie rock band based in Montreal, Quebec which is based around the husband and wife duo of Win Butler and Régine Chassagne. In 2004, their first full-length album Funeral was recorded. The group uses of a large number of musical instruments in addition to mainstays rock instruments of guitar, drums, and bass guitar, such as bowed string instruments, accordion, various brass and harp.
THE ARCADE FIRE LYRICS
"Keep The Car Running"
Every night my dream's the same
Same old city with a different name
Men are coming to take me away
I don't know why, but I know I can't stay
There's a weight that's pressing down
Late at night you can hear the sound
Even the noise you make when you sleep
Can't swim across a river so deep
They know my name cause I told it to them
But they don't know where and they don't know
When it's coming, when it's coming
There's a fear I keep so deep
Knew its name since before I could speak
Aaaaah Aaaaah Aaaaah Aaaaah
They know my name cause I told it to them
But they don't know where and they don't know
When its coming, oh when but its coming
Keep the car running
If some night I don't come home
Please don't think I've left you alone
The same place animals go when they die
You can't climb across a mountain so high
The same city where I go when I sleep
You can't swim across a river so deep
They know my name cause I told it to them
But they don't know where
And they don't know
When it's coming, oh when is it coming?
Keep the car running
Keep the car running
Keep the car running
ONCE in a Lifetime lyrics :
And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful
Wife
And you may ask yourself-well...how did I get here?
Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the moneys gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.
And you may ask yourself
How do I work this?
And you may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!
Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the moneys gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.
Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...same as it ever was...
Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...same as it ever was...
Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...
90's was Talking Heads a favorite song was Once in a Lifetime. i guess i haven't come so far. ...same as it ever was ...
Arcade Fire is an indie rock band based in Montreal, Quebec which is based around the husband and wife duo of Win Butler and Régine Chassagne. In 2004, their first full-length album Funeral was recorded. The group uses of a large number of musical instruments in addition to mainstays rock instruments of guitar, drums, and bass guitar, such as bowed string instruments, accordion, various brass and harp.
THE ARCADE FIRE LYRICS
"Keep The Car Running"
Every night my dream's the same
Same old city with a different name
Men are coming to take me away
I don't know why, but I know I can't stay
There's a weight that's pressing down
Late at night you can hear the sound
Even the noise you make when you sleep
Can't swim across a river so deep
They know my name cause I told it to them
But they don't know where and they don't know
When it's coming, when it's coming
There's a fear I keep so deep
Knew its name since before I could speak
Aaaaah Aaaaah Aaaaah Aaaaah
They know my name cause I told it to them
But they don't know where and they don't know
When its coming, oh when but its coming
Keep the car running
If some night I don't come home
Please don't think I've left you alone
The same place animals go when they die
You can't climb across a mountain so high
The same city where I go when I sleep
You can't swim across a river so deep
They know my name cause I told it to them
But they don't know where
And they don't know
When it's coming, oh when is it coming?
Keep the car running
Keep the car running
Keep the car running
ONCE in a Lifetime lyrics :
And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful
Wife
And you may ask yourself-well...how did I get here?
Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the moneys gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.
And you may ask yourself
How do I work this?
And you may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!
Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the moneys gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.
Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...same as it ever was...
Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...same as it ever was...
Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...
Sunday, March 30, 2008
a little humour and a little irony
1) irony
As i was driving around the backroads of nebraska last week i was turning thru the radio stations and i noticed russ limbaugh was on about four different channels. After listening a bit, the phrase "Nattering nabobs of negativism" came to mind. i
thought it ironic that a phrase popularized by spiro agnew as an insult to the press
would seem to fit russ so well who by all accounts would be a political bedfellow.?
Nattering nabobs of negativism" is one of the most popular turns of phrase associated with U.S. Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, who served under Richard Nixon until resigning in October 1974, after pleading no contest to charges of tax fraud. Agnew, who had a particularly acrimonious relationship with the press, used this term to refer to the members of the media, whom he also deemed "an effete corps of impudent snobs."
According to the Congressional Record, this term was first used during Agnew's address to the California Republican state convention in San Diego on September 11, 1970. In context, it was used together with another well-known Agnew alliteration: "In the United States today, we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism. They have formed their own 4-H Club -- the "hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history."
Although this phrase is often credited to Agnew himself, it was actually written by William Safire, the legendary columnist for The New York Times, who was a speechwriter for Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew. Some of Agnew's other pearls were actually written by Patrick Buchanan, another White House speechwriter at the time.
na·bob n.
1. A governor in India under the Mogul Empire. Also called nawab.
2. A person of wealth and prominence.
2) humour
when i was in highschool one might say after making a dumb joke: ' a little humour'
(which was stolen from johnny carson). a reply might be: ' yes, very little'.
consider the following "a little humour' :
How I Want To Be Remembered
by Jack Handey
March 31, 2008 Text Size:
We are gathered here, way far in the future, for the funeral of Jack Handey, the world’s oldest man. He died suddenly in bed, according to his wife, Miss France.
No one is really sure how old Jack was, but some think he may have been born as long ago as the twentieth century. He passed away after a long, courageous battle with honky-tonkin’ and alley-cattin’.
Even though Jack was incredibly old, he was amazingly healthy right up to the end. He attributed this to performing his funny cowboy dance for friends, relatives, and people waiting for buses. All agreed it was the most hilarious thing they had ever seen, and not at all stupid or annoying.
Jack’s death has thrown the whole world into mourning, and not in a fakey, sarcastic way. He was admired by people of all ages and stripes, and by all animals, including zebras. Even monsters liked him. He had his playful side and his serious side, but ninety-nine per cent of the time he had his “normal” side.
He started out life as a baby but worked his way up to an adult. But even when he was a full-grown adult he never forgot that he was a baby. His philosophy of life was a simple one. “I’m-a no look-a for trouble, because-a trouble, she’s-a no good,” he would often say, in his beloved fake Italian accent. He was quick with a laugh, but just as quick to point at what he was laughing at. Children loved him, but not in the way his teen-age niece claimed. He was always thinking of ways of helping people, and was wondering how he might do some of those things when he died.
Jack was an expert in so many fields, it’s hard to say what he was best at: the arts, the sciences, or the businesses. If you talked to him at a party, you couldn’t tell; he seemed to know it all. He has been compared to Captain James Cook, and not just because he was severely beaten by some Hawaiians, and to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, and not just because he liked to be driven around in a jeep.
As hard as it is to believe, he never sold a single painting during his lifetime, or even painted one. Some of the greatest advances in architecture, medicine, and theatre were not opposed by him, and he did little to sabotage them.
Although he lived in Paris, in a mansion famous for its many trapdoors, he was always proud to be an American. However, he was ashamed to be an earthling.
He was fabulously wealthy, but he would pretend to be broke, and often tried to borrow cigarettes and money from people. Little did they know that those who gave him stuff would later be rewarded in his will, with jewels and antigravity helmets. Women who refused to have sex with him are probably wishing that they could turn back the clock and say yes.
Generous even with his organs, he has asked that his eyes be donated to a blind person. Also his glasses. His skeleton, equipped with a spring that will suddenly propel it to a full standing position, will be used to educate kindergartners.
He has asked that no shrines be built to him. But he pointed out that this did not mean he didn’t like Shriners. According to our scientists, with their electronic soul trackers, Jack is in Heaven now. And not just regular Heaven, which any jerk can get into, but special secret Heaven, which even some angels don’t know about.
So let us celebrate his death, and not mourn. However, those who appear to be a little too happy will be asked to leave.
Perhaps the greatest tragedy is that a lot of the things Jack said and did seemed wrong at the time, but now we realize it wasn’t him; it was we who were wrong. Let us hope we don’t make the same mistake with his clones.
In closing, it is unfortunate that Jack’s friend Don could not be here. However, Don died many years ago, from a horrible fungus.
And now robot Elton John will sing “Candle in the Wind.”?
As i was driving around the backroads of nebraska last week i was turning thru the radio stations and i noticed russ limbaugh was on about four different channels. After listening a bit, the phrase "Nattering nabobs of negativism" came to mind. i
thought it ironic that a phrase popularized by spiro agnew as an insult to the press
would seem to fit russ so well who by all accounts would be a political bedfellow.?
Nattering nabobs of negativism" is one of the most popular turns of phrase associated with U.S. Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, who served under Richard Nixon until resigning in October 1974, after pleading no contest to charges of tax fraud. Agnew, who had a particularly acrimonious relationship with the press, used this term to refer to the members of the media, whom he also deemed "an effete corps of impudent snobs."
According to the Congressional Record, this term was first used during Agnew's address to the California Republican state convention in San Diego on September 11, 1970. In context, it was used together with another well-known Agnew alliteration: "In the United States today, we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism. They have formed their own 4-H Club -- the "hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history."
Although this phrase is often credited to Agnew himself, it was actually written by William Safire, the legendary columnist for The New York Times, who was a speechwriter for Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew. Some of Agnew's other pearls were actually written by Patrick Buchanan, another White House speechwriter at the time.
na·bob n.
1. A governor in India under the Mogul Empire. Also called nawab.
2. A person of wealth and prominence.
2) humour
when i was in highschool one might say after making a dumb joke: ' a little humour'
(which was stolen from johnny carson). a reply might be: ' yes, very little'.
consider the following "a little humour' :
How I Want To Be Remembered
by Jack Handey
March 31, 2008 Text Size:
We are gathered here, way far in the future, for the funeral of Jack Handey, the world’s oldest man. He died suddenly in bed, according to his wife, Miss France.
No one is really sure how old Jack was, but some think he may have been born as long ago as the twentieth century. He passed away after a long, courageous battle with honky-tonkin’ and alley-cattin’.
Even though Jack was incredibly old, he was amazingly healthy right up to the end. He attributed this to performing his funny cowboy dance for friends, relatives, and people waiting for buses. All agreed it was the most hilarious thing they had ever seen, and not at all stupid or annoying.
Jack’s death has thrown the whole world into mourning, and not in a fakey, sarcastic way. He was admired by people of all ages and stripes, and by all animals, including zebras. Even monsters liked him. He had his playful side and his serious side, but ninety-nine per cent of the time he had his “normal” side.
He started out life as a baby but worked his way up to an adult. But even when he was a full-grown adult he never forgot that he was a baby. His philosophy of life was a simple one. “I’m-a no look-a for trouble, because-a trouble, she’s-a no good,” he would often say, in his beloved fake Italian accent. He was quick with a laugh, but just as quick to point at what he was laughing at. Children loved him, but not in the way his teen-age niece claimed. He was always thinking of ways of helping people, and was wondering how he might do some of those things when he died.
Jack was an expert in so many fields, it’s hard to say what he was best at: the arts, the sciences, or the businesses. If you talked to him at a party, you couldn’t tell; he seemed to know it all. He has been compared to Captain James Cook, and not just because he was severely beaten by some Hawaiians, and to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, and not just because he liked to be driven around in a jeep.
As hard as it is to believe, he never sold a single painting during his lifetime, or even painted one. Some of the greatest advances in architecture, medicine, and theatre were not opposed by him, and he did little to sabotage them.
Although he lived in Paris, in a mansion famous for its many trapdoors, he was always proud to be an American. However, he was ashamed to be an earthling.
He was fabulously wealthy, but he would pretend to be broke, and often tried to borrow cigarettes and money from people. Little did they know that those who gave him stuff would later be rewarded in his will, with jewels and antigravity helmets. Women who refused to have sex with him are probably wishing that they could turn back the clock and say yes.
Generous even with his organs, he has asked that his eyes be donated to a blind person. Also his glasses. His skeleton, equipped with a spring that will suddenly propel it to a full standing position, will be used to educate kindergartners.
He has asked that no shrines be built to him. But he pointed out that this did not mean he didn’t like Shriners. According to our scientists, with their electronic soul trackers, Jack is in Heaven now. And not just regular Heaven, which any jerk can get into, but special secret Heaven, which even some angels don’t know about.
So let us celebrate his death, and not mourn. However, those who appear to be a little too happy will be asked to leave.
Perhaps the greatest tragedy is that a lot of the things Jack said and did seemed wrong at the time, but now we realize it wasn’t him; it was we who were wrong. Let us hope we don’t make the same mistake with his clones.
In closing, it is unfortunate that Jack’s friend Don could not be here. However, Don died many years ago, from a horrible fungus.
And now robot Elton John will sing “Candle in the Wind.”?
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
looking forward
in a 1996 film A Family Thing (written by billy bob thorton) a character played by robert duvall says "..the secret of happiness is always having something to look forward to" . i strongly suspect there is some truth to that.
now that my 6 month driving prohibition is up i can look forward to hitting the road
again this spring. my first trip will be to the platte river near grand island,nebraska
to see the sand hill crane migration. maybe i will reread the echo-maker to get me primed. being able to drive again is a real psychological boost. things tend to even
out as jack handy points out in the following new yorker story:
How Things Even Out
by Jack Handey March 3, 2008
Things tend to even out. Religion, some people say, has caused wars and fighting. Yes, but it’s also boring to sit through a church service, so it evens out. One moment you’re depressed because your doctor tells you that you have alcoholism. But then you cheer up when you go home and find a hidden bottle of vodka you had forgotten about.
Things are evening out all the time, if you take time to notice, like I do. Let’s say you want a big cupcake, with lots of icing, so you go buy one and eat it. But then you realize, I don’t have the cupcake anymore. Or maybe you take a bite of salsa that’s labelled “HOT,” and it doesn’t seem that hot, but then about a second later it seems really hot.
You might hear that some guy you know is having a party, so you call him up, but he says there’s no party. But then you call back, using a different voice, and suddenly there is a party.
One day, you ask people to take a look at a skin rash you have. Then, a few days later, you’re looking at their rashes. You send someone a death threat and then, mysteriously, the police come to your house and threaten you.
Maybe you find a nice flat pebble on a riverbank, and when you pick it up and throw it it skips across the water several times. But then the next pebble you can’t even pry loose because, what is this, glue mud? You notice an ant drifting away on a leaf in the water. Then you look up to see your aunt drifting away in a rowboat.
Eventually, I believe, everything evens out. Long ago, an asteroid hit our planet and killed our dinosaurs. But, in the future, maybe we’ll go to another planet and kill their dinosaurs.
Even in the afterlife things probably even out, although I can’t imagine how.
Still don’t believe that things even out? Try this simple test: flip a coin, over and over again, calling out “Heads!” or “Tails!” after each flip. Half the time people will ask you to please stop.
Once you realize that things even out, it’s like a light being turned on in your head, then being turned off, then being turned to “dim.”
Probably the perfect example of things evening out happened to me just last month. I was walking to the post office to mail a death threat. It was a beautiful day. I was happily singing away in my super-loud singing voice. I didn’t step on any chewing gum, like I usually do, and when I threw my gum down it didn’t stick to my fingertips. As I rounded the corner, there was a bum begging for change. I was feeling pretty good, so I gave him a five-dollar bill. At first I tried to make him do a little dance for the five dollars, but he wouldn’t do it, so I gave him the five dollars anyway.
Not long after that, I was reading the paper, and there was a picture of the bum. He had won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry! He had a little bigger nose and straighter teeth, but I’m pretty sure it was him. So, my five dollars had made him change his ways and become a chemistry guy.
A few days later, I was walking by the corner again, and there was the bum, back begging. So, things had evened out. He had gotten the Nobel Prize, but now he was a bum again. I asked him for the five dollars back, but he started saying weird stuff that I guess was chemistry formulas or something.
I told my friend Don the story, but he said it wasn’t an example of things evening out so much as just a stupid story. That’s interesting, Don, because you saying that evens out what I said to your mother that time.
I have a lot of stories about things evening out, but I think the one about the Nobel Prize-winning bum is the best. I’d say it would take about three of my other stories to even out that one.
now that my 6 month driving prohibition is up i can look forward to hitting the road
again this spring. my first trip will be to the platte river near grand island,nebraska
to see the sand hill crane migration. maybe i will reread the echo-maker to get me primed. being able to drive again is a real psychological boost. things tend to even
out as jack handy points out in the following new yorker story:
How Things Even Out
by Jack Handey March 3, 2008
Things tend to even out. Religion, some people say, has caused wars and fighting. Yes, but it’s also boring to sit through a church service, so it evens out. One moment you’re depressed because your doctor tells you that you have alcoholism. But then you cheer up when you go home and find a hidden bottle of vodka you had forgotten about.
Things are evening out all the time, if you take time to notice, like I do. Let’s say you want a big cupcake, with lots of icing, so you go buy one and eat it. But then you realize, I don’t have the cupcake anymore. Or maybe you take a bite of salsa that’s labelled “HOT,” and it doesn’t seem that hot, but then about a second later it seems really hot.
You might hear that some guy you know is having a party, so you call him up, but he says there’s no party. But then you call back, using a different voice, and suddenly there is a party.
One day, you ask people to take a look at a skin rash you have. Then, a few days later, you’re looking at their rashes. You send someone a death threat and then, mysteriously, the police come to your house and threaten you.
Maybe you find a nice flat pebble on a riverbank, and when you pick it up and throw it it skips across the water several times. But then the next pebble you can’t even pry loose because, what is this, glue mud? You notice an ant drifting away on a leaf in the water. Then you look up to see your aunt drifting away in a rowboat.
Eventually, I believe, everything evens out. Long ago, an asteroid hit our planet and killed our dinosaurs. But, in the future, maybe we’ll go to another planet and kill their dinosaurs.
Even in the afterlife things probably even out, although I can’t imagine how.
Still don’t believe that things even out? Try this simple test: flip a coin, over and over again, calling out “Heads!” or “Tails!” after each flip. Half the time people will ask you to please stop.
Once you realize that things even out, it’s like a light being turned on in your head, then being turned off, then being turned to “dim.”
Probably the perfect example of things evening out happened to me just last month. I was walking to the post office to mail a death threat. It was a beautiful day. I was happily singing away in my super-loud singing voice. I didn’t step on any chewing gum, like I usually do, and when I threw my gum down it didn’t stick to my fingertips. As I rounded the corner, there was a bum begging for change. I was feeling pretty good, so I gave him a five-dollar bill. At first I tried to make him do a little dance for the five dollars, but he wouldn’t do it, so I gave him the five dollars anyway.
Not long after that, I was reading the paper, and there was a picture of the bum. He had won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry! He had a little bigger nose and straighter teeth, but I’m pretty sure it was him. So, my five dollars had made him change his ways and become a chemistry guy.
A few days later, I was walking by the corner again, and there was the bum, back begging. So, things had evened out. He had gotten the Nobel Prize, but now he was a bum again. I asked him for the five dollars back, but he started saying weird stuff that I guess was chemistry formulas or something.
I told my friend Don the story, but he said it wasn’t an example of things evening out so much as just a stupid story. That’s interesting, Don, because you saying that evens out what I said to your mother that time.
I have a lot of stories about things evening out, but I think the one about the Nobel Prize-winning bum is the best. I’d say it would take about three of my other stories to even out that one.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Mavis Gallant
Its always a great pleasure to discover a new writer that you like,
or an old writer that you hadn't paid attention to before. Such is the
case with Mavis Gallant. I was on the New Yorker web site where I found an audible short story selected and read by Antonya Nelson (whose father was a college professor of mine).
Online it was entitled Waiting but the real title is "When we were almost young". It was originally published in 1960. It stuck me as such a great story I had to rush to the library to
check out the complete Collected Stories.
Here is the abstract summary of the story:
Mavis Gallant, Fiction, "When We Were Nearly Young," The New Yorker,
October 15, 1960, p. 38 October 15, 1960 Issue
In Madrid, 9 years ago, the writer & her companions lived on the
thought of money. The re were four of them: two men & two girls. The
men, Pablo & Carlos, were cousins. Pilar was a relation of theirs. The
writer was not Spanish & not a relation, just an accidental friend.
The thing they had in common was waiting for money. Carlos & Pablo
shared a room in a flat; writer lived in another room in the same
house. Pilar had her own small flat. They were all in their 20's &
worried about approaching their thirties. Getting along on their
meagre funds was a constant challenge. The Spaniards' characteristic
trait was a certain passiveness. One day the writer received some
money, but it aroused bitterness. Carlos remarked that the difference
between them was that something would always come for the writer but
not for them.
(That doesn't do the story justice.) There are a couple of quotes I remember:
"Poverty is not a goad but a paralysis."
..."we were not afraid because after all, what was the worse that could happen. No one seemed to know."
Thats when I thought, that would be a good question for the Buddha.
Me: What is the worse that can happen?
Buddha: Life is suffering.
Biography
An only child, Gallant was born in Montreal, Quebec. Her father died when she was young, and her mother remarried. Gallant received her education at seventeen different public, convent, and French-language boarding schools. In her twenties, she worked as a reporter for the Montreal Standard (1944-1950). She married John Gallant, a Winnipeg musician in 1942. The couple divorced five years later in 1947. Gallant left journalism in 1950 to pursue fiction writing.
Gallant has been forthright about the protectiveness she feels towards her autonomy and privacy. In an interview with Geoff Hancock in Canadian Fiction magazine in 1978, she discussed her “life project” and her deliberate move to France to write by saying, “I have arranged matters so that I would be free to write. It's what I like doing.” In the preface to her collection of stories, Home Truths: Selected Canadian Stories (1981), she uses the words of Boris Pasternak as her epigraph: “Only personal independence matters.”
In 1981, Gallant was honoured by her native country and made an Officer of the Order of Canada for her contribution to literature; that year, she received the Governor General's Award for literature for her collection of stories, Home Truths. In 1983-84, she returned to Canada to be the writer-in-residence at the University of Toronto. Queen’s University awarded her an honorary LL.D. in 1991. She was promoted to Companion of the Order of Canada in 1993.
In 1989, Gallant was made a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2000, she won the Matt Cohen Prize, and in 2002 she received the Rea Award for the Short Story. The O. Henry Prize Stories of 2003 was dedicated to her.
With Alice Munro, Gallant is one of a few Canadian authors whose works regularly appear in The New Yorker. Many of Gallant’s stories have debuted in the magazine before subsequently being published in a collection.
[edit] Critical assessment
Grazia Merler observes in her book, Mavis Gallant: Narrative Patterns and Devices, that “Psychological character development is not the heart of Mavis Gallant’s stories, nor is plot. Specific situation development and reconstruction of the state of mind or of heart is, however, the main objective.” Frequently, Gallant’s stories focus on expatriate men and women who have come to feel lost or isolated; marriages that have grown flimsy or shabby; lives that have faltered and now hover in the shadowy area between illusion, self-delusion, and reality. As well, because of her heritage and understanding of Acadian history, she is often compared to Antonine Maillet, considered to be spokesperson for Acadian culture in Canada.
In a critical book, Reading Mavis Gallant, Janice Kulyk Keefer says, “Gallant is a writer who dazzles us with her command of the language, her innovative use of narrative forms, the acuity of her intelligence, and the incisiveness of her wit. Yet she also disconcerts us with her insistence on the constrictions and limitations that dominate human experience.”
In a review of her work in Books in Canada in 1978, Geoff Hancock asserts that “Mavis Gallant's fiction is among the finest ever written by a Canadian. But, like buried treasure, both the author and her writing are to discover.” In the Canadian Reader, Robert Fulford has said, “One begins comparing her best moments to those of major figures in literary history. Names like Henry James, Chekhov, and George Eliot dance across the mind.”
[edit] Major works
Gallant has written two novels, Green Water, Green Sky (1969) and A Fairly Good Time (1970); a play, What is to be Done? (1984); numerous celebrated collections of stories, The Other Paris (1953), My Heart is Broken (1964), The Pegnitz Junction (1973), The End of the World and Other Stories (1974), From the Fifteenth District (1978), Home Truths: Selected Canadian Stories (1981), Overhead in a Balloon: Stories of Paris (1985), and In Transit (1988); and a non-fiction work, Paris Journals: Selected Essays and Reviews (1986).
[edit] Current life
Although she maintains her Canadian citizenship, Gallant has lived in Paris, France since the 1950s.
or an old writer that you hadn't paid attention to before. Such is the
case with Mavis Gallant. I was on the New Yorker web site where I found an audible short story selected and read by Antonya Nelson (whose father was a college professor of mine).
Online it was entitled Waiting but the real title is "When we were almost young". It was originally published in 1960. It stuck me as such a great story I had to rush to the library to
check out the complete Collected Stories.
Here is the abstract summary of the story:
Mavis Gallant, Fiction, "When We Were Nearly Young," The New Yorker,
October 15, 1960, p. 38 October 15, 1960 Issue
In Madrid, 9 years ago, the writer & her companions lived on the
thought of money. The re were four of them: two men & two girls. The
men, Pablo & Carlos, were cousins. Pilar was a relation of theirs. The
writer was not Spanish & not a relation, just an accidental friend.
The thing they had in common was waiting for money. Carlos & Pablo
shared a room in a flat; writer lived in another room in the same
house. Pilar had her own small flat. They were all in their 20's &
worried about approaching their thirties. Getting along on their
meagre funds was a constant challenge. The Spaniards' characteristic
trait was a certain passiveness. One day the writer received some
money, but it aroused bitterness. Carlos remarked that the difference
between them was that something would always come for the writer but
not for them.
(That doesn't do the story justice.) There are a couple of quotes I remember:
"Poverty is not a goad but a paralysis."
..."we were not afraid because after all, what was the worse that could happen. No one seemed to know."
Thats when I thought, that would be a good question for the Buddha.
Me: What is the worse that can happen?
Buddha: Life is suffering.
Biography
An only child, Gallant was born in Montreal, Quebec. Her father died when she was young, and her mother remarried. Gallant received her education at seventeen different public, convent, and French-language boarding schools. In her twenties, she worked as a reporter for the Montreal Standard (1944-1950). She married John Gallant, a Winnipeg musician in 1942. The couple divorced five years later in 1947. Gallant left journalism in 1950 to pursue fiction writing.
Gallant has been forthright about the protectiveness she feels towards her autonomy and privacy. In an interview with Geoff Hancock in Canadian Fiction magazine in 1978, she discussed her “life project” and her deliberate move to France to write by saying, “I have arranged matters so that I would be free to write. It's what I like doing.” In the preface to her collection of stories, Home Truths: Selected Canadian Stories (1981), she uses the words of Boris Pasternak as her epigraph: “Only personal independence matters.”
In 1981, Gallant was honoured by her native country and made an Officer of the Order of Canada for her contribution to literature; that year, she received the Governor General's Award for literature for her collection of stories, Home Truths. In 1983-84, she returned to Canada to be the writer-in-residence at the University of Toronto. Queen’s University awarded her an honorary LL.D. in 1991. She was promoted to Companion of the Order of Canada in 1993.
In 1989, Gallant was made a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2000, she won the Matt Cohen Prize, and in 2002 she received the Rea Award for the Short Story. The O. Henry Prize Stories of 2003 was dedicated to her.
With Alice Munro, Gallant is one of a few Canadian authors whose works regularly appear in The New Yorker. Many of Gallant’s stories have debuted in the magazine before subsequently being published in a collection.
[edit] Critical assessment
Grazia Merler observes in her book, Mavis Gallant: Narrative Patterns and Devices, that “Psychological character development is not the heart of Mavis Gallant’s stories, nor is plot. Specific situation development and reconstruction of the state of mind or of heart is, however, the main objective.” Frequently, Gallant’s stories focus on expatriate men and women who have come to feel lost or isolated; marriages that have grown flimsy or shabby; lives that have faltered and now hover in the shadowy area between illusion, self-delusion, and reality. As well, because of her heritage and understanding of Acadian history, she is often compared to Antonine Maillet, considered to be spokesperson for Acadian culture in Canada.
In a critical book, Reading Mavis Gallant, Janice Kulyk Keefer says, “Gallant is a writer who dazzles us with her command of the language, her innovative use of narrative forms, the acuity of her intelligence, and the incisiveness of her wit. Yet she also disconcerts us with her insistence on the constrictions and limitations that dominate human experience.”
In a review of her work in Books in Canada in 1978, Geoff Hancock asserts that “Mavis Gallant's fiction is among the finest ever written by a Canadian. But, like buried treasure, both the author and her writing are to discover.” In the Canadian Reader, Robert Fulford has said, “One begins comparing her best moments to those of major figures in literary history. Names like Henry James, Chekhov, and George Eliot dance across the mind.”
[edit] Major works
Gallant has written two novels, Green Water, Green Sky (1969) and A Fairly Good Time (1970); a play, What is to be Done? (1984); numerous celebrated collections of stories, The Other Paris (1953), My Heart is Broken (1964), The Pegnitz Junction (1973), The End of the World and Other Stories (1974), From the Fifteenth District (1978), Home Truths: Selected Canadian Stories (1981), Overhead in a Balloon: Stories of Paris (1985), and In Transit (1988); and a non-fiction work, Paris Journals: Selected Essays and Reviews (1986).
[edit] Current life
Although she maintains her Canadian citizenship, Gallant has lived in Paris, France since the 1950s.
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