November 10, 2005

From the Seattle Notebooks

HEADLINE above the fold in Queen Anne's neighborhood newspaper: Grass Roots Local Group Seeks to Save the World.

LEAD SENTENCE of a review we never finished reading of a book we will never read: "This lumbering coming-of-age tale of a boy and his dragon...."

UPON READING a comment by someone who didn't get the joke: "Satire is invisible to those with no moral compass. If good and evil are believed to be relative, if all morality is seen as mere relativity, then that person has no tuning peg upon which his soul can be pitched to perceive either sense or satire."

ONE of the greatest disappointments of the failing feminist mind is the knowledge than it can never be, nor even hope to emulate, Antigone. Even Sappho at her most mundane remains forever out of reach.

AT OCEANSIDE: One of the underapprecaited benefits of a broad and utterly empty beach is the power to close one's eyes and walk blind without fear for miles. Call it, walking on instruments.

REGARDING THE BOOMERS, the "Not-So-Great Generation:" A generation forever unable to understand or tolerate the slightest gap between desire and gratification. We were a generation whose elite's utter deriliction of duty would be forgiven by the most moist and waffling of our weak Presidents, Jimmy Carter. It was like having the all the worse sins of your youth forgiven and expunged by Alvin the Chipmunk. We grew up learning, time after time, that radical actions have few radical consequences. Accordingly, in an effort to improve our progeny as we had been improved, we taught our own children that their actions, no matter how awful, would have no consequnces whatsoever. It would turn out to be the toughest thing they would ever have to unlearn.

ON YET ANOTHER ARTICLE BY JAMES WOLCOTT: His wit, when exercised at all, is like watching an anorexic shamble carelessly across a freshly waxed floor.

ON JEFFERSON: The appearence on Earth of The Declaration of Independence, once the full force of the nation formed beneath it, was a revelation as startling as Monticello rising up out of the trackless wilderness.

T-SHIRT SEEN ON A PANHANDLER: My imaginary friend has decided that we have serious problems of compatibility.

SIGN HELD BY SAME PANHANDLER: Will Hallucinate for Food.

UPON GAZING ON 37 BOXES STACKED IN THE NEW KITCHEN: Yes, I have three corkscrews. But where?

Posted by Vanderleun at November 10, 2005 5:30 PM
Bookmark and Share

Comments:

HOME

"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.

Always keep a Swiss Army knife in your truck, if you have a truck. If you don't have a truck, why not?

Dan Patterson

Posted by: Dan Patterson at November 11, 2005 7:00 AM

Who was it who said, "If we had some tonic, we could make a gin and tonic, if we had some gin..?"

Posted by: Tom Parker at November 11, 2005 8:32 AM

Heard a comment from Ron White that fits: "If life gives you lemons, then make lemonade, and find somebody who life has given vodka, and have a party."

Posted by: ed in texas at November 11, 2005 9:23 AM

For three decades I'd carried the same Swiss Army knife; I never thought anything could replace it in my heart. The I found the Leatherman Juice CS4, and something took my SAK's place in it's leather pouch on my belt.

It has the all-essential corkscrew (yes, we have several others in the house, but none of them are ever used), the small-but-sharp scissors, the tiny knife blade, the flat and Philips screwdriver blades...but it's also a pair of pliers. If I have my pants on, I can open a beer or bottle of wine. If I don't have them on, I know where they are, and can typically reach them quickly.

(R.A.H.: "Always be able to find your clothes and weapons in the dark.")

Posted by: Blackwing1 at November 11, 2005 10:16 AM

To Blackwing:

Good afternoon. Your comment: "If I have my pants on, I can open a beer or bottle of wine.", is appropriate for the topic. Now, if you had bragged that you could open a beer bottle with your pants OFF, well...

Dan

Posted by: Dan Patterson at November 11, 2005 11:27 AM

On bum with sign:

Better than a sign saying, "Will work for the opportunity to hallucinate."

Posted by: Alan Kellogg at November 13, 2005 4:39 PM