Show That Snippet, A Conversation, A Paragraph, That Is Good...

Nonya · Sep 9, 2017

I like the cowardly Lion's speech in "The Wizard of Oz":
Cowardly Lion:
Courage!
What makes a king out of a slave? Courage!
What makes the flag on the mast to wave? Courage!
What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist, or the dusky dusk? What makes the muskrat guard his musk? Courage!
What makes the sphinx the seventh wonder? Courage!
What makes the dawn come up like thunder? Courage!
What makes the Hottentot so hot? What puts the "ape" in apricot? What have they got that I ain't got?

Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Woodsman: Courage!
Cowardly Lion: You can say that again! Huh?

Nonya · Sep 17, 2017

"And in his brain,
Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit
After a voyage, he hath strange places crammed
With observation, the which he vents
In mangled forms."

-- W.Shakespeare (in As You Like It )

Cheeniya · Sep 17, 2017

Giovanni Guareschi - A lovely self introduction.
My life began on the 1st of May 1908, and between one thing and another, it still goes on. When I was born my mother had been teaching in the elementary school for nine years and she continued to teach until the end of 1949. In recognition of her work, the parish priest of the village presented her with an alarm clock in the name of all the people, and after fifty years of teaching in schools where there was no electric light or water but, in compensation, an abundant supply of cockroaches, flies, and mosquitoes, my mother now passes her time waiting for the State to consider her request for a pension and listening to the tick-tock of the alarm clock given her by the village. At the time when I was born, my father was interested in all kinds of machines, from harvesters to gramophones, and he possessed an enormous moustache, very similar to the one I wear under my nose. He still has the splendid moustache, but for some time he has not been interested in much of anything, and he passes his time reading the newspapers. He also reads what I write, but he does not like my way of writing and thinking. In his day my father was a very brilliant man, and he travelled around by automobile at a time, in Italy, when entire populations went from one time to another in order to see that darned machine that ran by itself. The only memory I have of these ancient splendours is an old automobile horn — the kind with the rubber ball that you squeeze. My father screwed this to the head of his bed and he used to sound it every so often, especially in the summertime. I also have a brother, but I had an argument with him two weeks ago and I prefer not to discuss him. In addition to the above I have a motor-cycle with four cylinders, an automobile with six cylinders, and a wife and two children. My parents had decided that I should become a naval engineer and so I ended up studying law and thus, in a short time, I became famous as a signboard artist and caricaturist. Since no one at school had ever made me study drawing, drawing naturally had a particular fascination for me and, after doing caricatures and public advertisements, I studied wood-carving and scenic design. At the same time I kept busy as a doorman in a sugar refinery, a superintendant of a parking lot for bicycles, and since I knew nothing at all about music I began to give mandolin lessons to some friends. I had an excellent record as a censustaker. I was a teacher in a boarding school and then I got a job correcting proofs on a local newspaper. To supplement my modest salary I began to write stories about local events and since I had a free day on Sunday I took over the editorship of the weekly magazine which came out on Monday. In order to get it together as quickly as possible I wrote three-quarters of it. One fine day I took a train and went to Milan, where I wormed my way into a humour magazine called Bertoldo. Here I was forced to stop writing, but I was allowed to draw. I took advantage of this by drawing in white on black paper, something which created vast depressed areas in the magazine. I was born in Parma near the Po River; people born in this area have heads as hard as pig iron and I succeeded in becoming editor-in-chief of Bertoldo. This is the magazine in which Saul Steinberg, who at that time was studying architecture in Milan, published his first drawings and for which he worked until he left to go to America. For reasons entirely beyond my control, the war broke out and one day in 1942 I went on a terrific drunk because my brother was lost in Russia and I couldn't find anything about him. That night I went up and down the streets of Milan shouting things which filled several sheets of legal-size paper — as I found out the next day when I was arrested by the political police. Then a lot of people worried about me and they finally got me released. However, the political police wanted me out of circulation and so had me called into the army, and on the 9th of September 1943, with the fall of Fascism, I was taken prisoner again, this time at Alessendria in Northern Italy by the Germans. Since I did not want to work for the Germans, I was sent to a Polish concentration camp. I was in various concentration camps until April 1945, when my camp was taken over by the English and after five months I was sent back to Italy. The period I spent in prison was the most intensely active of my life. In fact I had to do everything to stay alive and succeeded almost completely by dedicating myself to a precise programme which is summarized in my slogan “I will not die even they kill me”. (It is not easy to remain alive when one is reduced to sack of bones of which the total weight is one hundred pounds, and this includes lice, bedbugs, fleas, hunger, and melancholy.) When I returned to Italy I found that many things were changed, especially the Italians, and I spent a good deal of time trying to figure out whether they had changed for the better or for the worse. In the end I discovered that they had not changed at all, and then I became so depressed that I shut myself in my house. Shortly afterwards a new magazine called Candido was established in Milan and, in working for it, I found myself up to my eyes in politics, although I was then, and still am, an independant. Nevertheless, the magazine values my contributions very highly — perhaps because I am editor-in-chief. A few months ago the leader of the Italian Communists Mr. Palmiro Togliatti, made a speech in which he lost his temper and called the Milanese journalist who invented the character with the triple nostrils “a triple idiot”. The threefold idiot is me and this was for me the most prized recognition of my work as a political journalist. The man with three nostrils is now famous in Italy, and it was I who created him. I must admit that I am proud because to succeed in characterizing a Communist with a stroke of the pen (that is, putting under the nose three, instead of two, nostrils) is not a bad idea, and it worked very well. And why should I be modest? The other things that I wrote and drew during the days before the election also worked very well; to prove it I have in my attic a sack full of newspaper clippings which malign me; whoever wants to know more can come and read them. The stories in The Little World of Don Camillo were very successful in Italy, and this book, which collects the first series of these stories, is already in its seventh edition. Many people people have written long articles on The Little World of Don Camillo and many people have written me letters about this or that story, and so now I am a little confused, and I would find myself rather embarrassed if I had to make any judgement of The Little World of Don Camillo. The background of these stories is my home, Parma, the Emilian Plain along the Po where political passion often reaches a disturbing intensity, and yet these people are attractive and hospitable and generous and have a highly developed sense of humour. It must be the sun, a terrible sun which beats on their brains during the summer, or perhaps it is the fog, a heavy fog which oppresses them during the winter. The people in these stories are true to life and the stories are so true that more that once, after I had written a story, the thing actually happened and one read it in the news. In fact the truth surpasses the imagination. I once wrote a story about the Communist, Peppone, who was annoyed during a political meeting by an aeroplane which threw down pamphlets of the opposition. Peppone took up a machinegun, but he could not bring himself to fire on the plane. When I wrote this I said to myself, “This is too fantastic.” Some months later at Spilimberg not only did the Communists fire on an aeroplane that distributed anti-Communist pamphlets, but they shot it down. I have nothing more to say about The Little World of Don Camillo. You can't expect that after a poor fellow has written a book he should also understand it. I am 5 feet 10 inches high and I have written eight books in all. I have also done a movie which is called People Like This, now being distributed throughout Italy. Many people like the movie; others do not like it. As far as I am concerned, the movie leaves me indifferent. Many things in life me indifferent now, but that is not my fault. It is the fault of the war. The war destroyed a lot of things we had within us. We have seen too many dead and too many living. In addition to 5 feet 10 inches, I have all my hair. G.G.

Never miss his Don Camillo series!

Iravati · Sep 28, 2017

I love reading Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut and Douglas Adams are my comfort authors. They can be read several times with gusto. Last night I was reading his Breakfast of Champions again and came across below quote. I have already highlighted this passage, nevertheless, great sayings never lose their charm.

"Ideas on Earth were badges of friendship or enmity. Their content did not matter. Friends agreed with friends, in order to express friendliness. Enemies disagreed with enemies, in order to express enmity."

That insight flies in the face of science on how friendships are forged. There may not be prolonged whetting or reconciliation of solidarity. Friends form and then friendship is borne. Once friendship is agreed, friends would express friendliness. I mean, they adhere to friendliness. Similarly, enemies form and then enmity arises. Sometimes, we are amused why people loathe us so much for no reason or rhyme. At college, you meet people who are displeased with first hello. At work, you find cross faces that transpire no conflict. This is where such insight is useful. If a MIL vehemently loathes a new DIL and the bride is confused she has to come to terms that MIL hates her by virtue of her being a DIL. She doesn't have to do anything to spite or anger the MIL. Friends love friends and enemies hate enemies. We don't have to delve on how such friendliness came about as long as people have agreed to be friends.

Kilgore Trout is my favourite fictional character. His musing and reflection of the world is a kicker. First, you feel he is a washed-up rhetoric then when you ponder you realise ...wait....perhaps he is saying not how the world should be (that we construe) but how the world really is (that we miss seeing).

Nonya · Sep 29, 2017

well....
Breakfast of Champions evokes what is said about Playboy magazine. Some can read it for the deep meanings of the text, and others can just look at the pictures.

Could one imagine Bruce Willis as Dwayne Hoover, a Pontiac Salesman?

Nonya · Nov 3, 2017

A picture is worth a 1000 words. A video ?

Nonya · Nov 19, 2017

I thought this GIF was cute. Was on the webpage of the article about taking a pill instead of doing exercise.... to get the same benefits.

Mice love to run, Evans told me, and when he puts an exercise wheel in their cage they typically log several miles a night. These nocturnal drills are not simply a way of dealing with the stress of laboratory life, as scientists from Leiden University, in the Netherlands, demonstrated in a charming experiment conducted a few years ago. They left a small cagelike structure containing a training wheel in a quiet corner of an urban park, under the surveillance of a motion-activated night-vision camera. The resulting footage showed that the wheel was in near-constant use by wild mice. Despite the fact that their daily activities—foraging for food, searching for mates, avoiding predators—provided a more than adequate workout, the mice voluntarily chose to run, spending up to eighteen minutes at a time on the wheel, and returning for repeat sessions.
source

Iravati · Mar 2, 2018

Lines I loved from Hell (French: L'Enfer) written by Henri Barbusse in 1908.

"These two were together, but in reality far apart. They had left each other without leaving each other."

A play on the word "leave" can produce such a contemplative muse?!

"Is he a Russian or a Greek?"
"I do not know. I see so much into the inside of people that their outsides all look alike to me."

Again, succinct play on opposing words. Too many striking passages, the above are simple and obvious.

Iravati · Mar 2, 2018

While reading "The Rape of the Masters: How Political Correctness Sabotages Art" by Roger Kimball,

"Profesor Chave says, it is “germane” to Rothko’s paintings—or “palimpsest.” Etymologically, “palimpsest” means “scraped again.” Back in the good old days, when writing materials were expensive and you really had to work to write something down, people would often erase an unneeded document and write over it; sometimes, years later, the imperfectly erased original could be deciphered underneath the new writing. Professor Chave wants us to consider Rothko’s paintings as palimpsests of a sort. “My purpose is to demonstrate how multiple meanings, a palimpsest of meanings, inhere in Rothko’s pictures.” That sounds terrific. I, too, like the word “palimpsest.” But what’s underneath the paint in Rothko’s paintings? Nada. Nichts. Rien. Or to speak plainly: nothing, just blank canvas. “Up to a point” Professor Chave says, “Rothko’s art may fruitfully be analyzed as involving a language or sign system.” (“ Up to a point” as in “Up to a point, Lord Copper.”). Of course there is no telling whether Rothko, despite wanting to be known for dealing with “the human drama,” would have approved of Professor Chave’s “icons,” “palimpsests,” “traces,” and “decodings.”

This Kimball bloke is outrageously biting and funny!