Wednesday, October 29, 2008

TOO MUCH LARD!

Once again folks. A blog-posting NOT about books. I was sitting there at work -- lunch-time -- reading my Shakespeare [damn, that guy can write…] and eating Cheese-Doodles© .
Cheese-Puffs© .

Whatever they are called.
My fingers were all cheesy and they cheesy-ed up my book, getting it all…. lardy.
It got so bad that I began to wonder….What the hell is IN these things?
Petroleum?
Are they like 99% grease?

What follows, my friends, is a disheartening and yet entirely scientific answer to that question.
I looked over at this one bin we have. Full of paper to be shredded. Thing weighs 1,600 pounds. I looked at the cheese-doodles. Then I looked at this monstrosifically heavy bin of paper. That’s it there at the top of the blog!
So…… I took two of the cheese-doodles…

-- folded them in white paper and set them UNDER that monstrous weight! That colossal skid of paper!
Yeah!
Like right there!

Then I let down the pallet-jack and crushed the Sam-frigging-Hell out of those two cheese-doodles.
Mother Mary and the saints!


Look at the profound amount of lard [or whatever] came out of those things!
And we eat this crap?

No wonder I can’t breathe all that great, after my lunch breaks!
If this sort of scientific data intrigues you, I encourage you to click onto the following link, where I learned that if you fold the paper only twice instead of four times, you can end up with some really neat Cheese-Grease Rorschach Tests!
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Splash du Jour: Wednesday








Have a great Wednesday!

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Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Where's the BEEF?

“Aww! Get SERIOUS!”
That’s what I said.
That’s the first thing I said last night after packing away all the groceries I had just bought.
Where’s the roast beef?
I cannot LIVE without the sliced roast beef stuff, for sandwiches!
My God!
It is not here…. was not there!
Then I noticed a few more things were missing. Like shampoo. Bread.
But the essential thing, the beef… no, this cannot be happening.
So I got in the elevator and went back down to my car, 150 feet below me.
Nope.
It’s not there.
The only thing in the trunk of my car is the broken umbrella that I shoved in there over the weekend when it would not close properly. I busted some of its tines…. the thing is busted. And I had piled all my grocery bags on top of this upside-down still-OPENED umbrella. But no.
There was no missing bag of groceries.
All four of the missing items on my bill [a loaf of bread, a hunk of cheddar cheese, a bottle of shampoo, and the BEEF] were the last 4 things run through by the cashier.

So I called the store from work this morning. While my stomach growled from lack of roast beef, I asked the person on the other end if perhaps they might have my missing bag of groceries from last night.
Amazingly, I was told that there is actually some sort of “department” that handles such emergencies!
I was given another number to call.
When I was patched through to the right people, things started to happen.
They have a book.
And in that book is recorded the stuff that people like me leave behind.
I had no idea such a thing existed.

The girl on the phone made me recite my missing items. When I mentioned one or two things I figured that would be enough.
But no. There was only a silence.
She was waiting. [“My God, these people are serious about this,” I thought to myself….] Like what? Is there ANOTHER bag of groceries there that contains shampoo, beef, cheese and…….. some OTHER kind of bread, rather than my 100% whole wheat?
Is that what we're doing here?
Oh, well.
Only after I had correctly named all four items did she inform me “Yeah. We have that bag of groceries here. Come and pick it up.”
And so I did.
AND SO I DID.
Hey, just because I won that $30 million Lottery last year doesn’t mean I am going to just abandon a $15.00 bag of groceries!
And especially not when it’s got nice sliced cow in it!

*********

Splash du Jour: Tuesday

Have a great Tuesday!
********

Monday, October 27, 2008

Splash du Jour: Monday

I have known a number of intelligent philosophers and a vast multitude of poets, novelists, storytellers, playwrights. No one should expect them to talk as well as they write, yet even the best of them, on their best day, cannot equal those men made out of words, Falstaff and Hamlet.
-- Harold Bloom --


Have a great Monday!
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Sunday, October 26, 2008

Consider It Forgotten

Summer is long gone, we all know that.
And every October the death knell of the impending funeral of autumn is heard in my neighborhood. It is the sound of hammers on wood. The annual construction of the skating rink across the street, in the park.
This morning I left my apartment building and started out across that park.
Along the length of the near side of the newly erected rink, a couple were exercising their gorgeous Golden Retriever.
Back and forth this beautiful beast tirelessly ran, as the man threw a ball the length of the boards, to his partner. The dog would always meet the bouncing ball in the leaf-strewn grass long before it met either human. Then he would bound over and place the spit-laden missile in the waiting hand. As the woman fired the ball back to the man, the tireless dog was already halfway there.
You get the picture?

Well, just as I approached this scene, the dog was in full flight on its way to that ball, his tail to me.
And the woman got the idea to hide on Rover!
She crouched and ran along the hidden side of the boards, in other words, out of sight of the dog who would, in about two seconds, begin its mach-3 run back to her.
She would not be there. But guess who would be?
Yeah.
ME!
And I was!
The congruence of my proximity could not have been more felicitous!
The man fired the ball hard and high and the dog was already on his way.
Our eyes met.
Here was this golden flying beast, the ball sailing over its head and its tongue flapping clear to his ribs and an amazing thing happened. Even in that flurry of motion I could instantly see the profound dog-confusion in those eyes.
“Hey, hey, HEY, HEY! Where’s what’s-her-name what is going on here I don’t know who that is but the deal is I keep running because I’m a dog….” and then CLOMP the ball was in his slobbery jowls.
Rover dead in his tracks as I kept right on walking.
Sound or scent caused the dog to look to his left where his rightful ball-partner crouched behind the boards, giggling. And with a triumphant bounding frolic he leaped to her side, positively overjoyed that whatever metamorphism it had just imagined was not permanent!
I kept on walking, filling my lungs with autumn air and wondering if anything in the history of the world had ever been as quickly considered and forgotten as I myself was, in that dog’s mind.

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Saturday, October 25, 2008

Like Clove: A Saturday Poem










Like Clove


Around one I hoped you would be the last to leave.

I had never talked to anyone like this, like we did,

and you were still there at two. I watched as you

quickly gathered your things, girlfriends tugging.

Longing in your eyes as we shook hands?
A feeling of not wanting to open mine ever again.


When I finally did, there was your scarf left behind,

and me wanting to hang myself with it. Fearfully,

the myth of you mingled with this scent of clove.

Thread and fiber I shall keep, one day wrapping

the back of your neck and drawing to my lips

yours. Giving to you what is not mine anymore.


© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Friday, October 24, 2008

Splash du Jour: Friday

As a reader I've always been drawn to the “Big Question” book. Philosophical, difficult, set in their particular time -- the kind of book that isn't afraid to ask tough questions. In the same way I'm put off by books that pretend to answer the questions they raise. There can't be answers -- not sincere or meaningful answers -- to the questions raised in a great book.
For me a novel doesn't try to solve riddles, but instead simply lays them out, exposes, or states those riddles in new, arresting, and entirely crucial ways. In raising those questions -- by positioning your characters, building your setting and your drama -- you approach the heart of what it is to be human. Cliche, I know, but what other reason could there be?

-- Dennis Bock –

Have a great Friday!

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Splash du Jour: Thursday

The Coopers were shown into the dentist’s office, where Mr. Cooper made it clear he was in a big hurry. “No fancy stuff, Doctor,” he ordered. “No gas or needles or any of that stuff. Just pull the tooth and get it over with.”
“I wish more of my patients were as stoic as you,” said the dentist admiringly. “Now, which tooth is it.”
Mr. Cooper turned to his wife, “Open your mouth, honey.”

Have a great Thursday!

*********

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Long Live AC/DC

Yesterday [Oct.20th] was the North American launch of the new [long-awaited, much anticipated] CD from AC/DC.
← Black Ice.
I will never forget the first time I realized that I was in love with AC/DC. It was about 68 years ago now. I was stoned. Just this side of comatose.
The perfect state for a lifelong musical epiphany, right?
I was playing billiards with my friend Warren Zimmerman, in his basement.
We weren’t really “playing” billiards, we were…. we were too amazed at the physics involved in the process of hitting this one white ball and then it hits this other colored one and…. no wait, not that one you idiot, you’ve got to sink a red one first and… and then… [groundless laughter] – "Did you hear that?"
"Whut?" [Yours truly, at his most eloquent.]
"I heard…. was that the front door?" -- [the combined paranoid-laden circumference of our dilated pupils is somewhere around three square metres]… Warren goes over to the turntable and drops the needle on Sin City.
From the Powerage album.

Epiphany!
Oh, yeah – I’ve gotten older. Soberer.
Cut my Frampton hair. I got a job and stuff.
But…. I’ve never really recovered.



Click on these lads!
AC/DC.
You’ve just gotta love ‘em.
[‘Specially if you’re a guy].
If you are a man, you need not respond [I don’t even want to know if you don’t like this band…] but I would be especially interested in hearing from any womenfolk that agree with me.
According to the above video-excerpt, the love of AC/DC has male-bonding connections.
My question, girls, is simple.
Is AC/DC not the greatest invention since the... since the pool cue?

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Splash du Jour: Tuesday

The question to bring to any of the stories of the Bible, once we no longer see it as TAWOGFAT [the authoritative word of God for all time] is: What do you make of it? not What is the meaning of the story? You bring the meaning to it. It's not there without you reading it and getting something out of it. You are the context in which it will be figured out and lived, if it's worth it. You might find that much of it is helpful to you as you move, headlong, into the next stage of your life. Or you might find that you shouldn't have wasted your time. Every story is different, and everyone's perspective is different. For that matter, once the Bible is set aside as the spiritual resource, you can be fed by many sources. Use whatever it is you're reading -- William Blake or Mary Oliver, Maeve Binchy or Thich Nhat Hanh, Dean Koontz or Phillippa Gregory. Seek out the deep spiritual wisdom that your perspective might find there.
-- Gretta Vosper, in With or Without God --

Have a great Tuesday!

Monday, October 20, 2008

Splash du Jour: Monday

Q. The Crimson Petal and the White was recently serialized in the British newspaper The Guardian, which posted each episode on the web. Did it feel odd to send your work out into cyberspace in this way?
Michel Faber: I haven't traveled into cyberspace to see it. I wrote it for myself, on paper. And I'm sure that if my work is destined to survive, it will survive on thin slices of tree, not as digital impulses flitting around in computers. Giving people a taste of my novel on the Internet is fun, but Bill Gates' dream of a future where books no longer exist is the sort of folly that only someone who doesn't appreciate literature could conceive. Books are meant to be held and taken to bed.

Have a great Monday!
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Sunday, October 19, 2008

Thoughts on Love --

Just hours ago I finished reading this sprawling 900-pager.
Oh, such a tremendously worthwhile novel.
Definitely one of the best reads of the past year for me, perhaps the best.
But at the end, so unbearably sad at certain parts that I very nearly wanted to hurl it at the [Starbucks] wall!
The Crimson Petal and the White, by Michel Faber.

It took him 20 years to write it, and nearly as long for me to read it, but seriously, trust me friends… if you love great Victorian-era fiction, this one has a money-back guarantee!
So many of its main themes, not the least of which is the idea of “rescue”… so many ideas of the book have not only resonated within me at a deep level, but also have accompanied me in my mind, as I walked home tonight along Sussex Street in the cool autumn air.
It is a real thought-provoker.
The book makes me think about love. The mechanics of it. What is it?

Not the kind of love we have for our pets, or for our country, or our friends, family members and parents, etc. No.
I mean that kind of exclusive love we reserve for another person. The kind that leads to all of the best kind of intercourses, and I don’t mean just of the sexual nature.
The love we mean when we say to someone, “I am in love with you.”

Nothing of what I am about to say is meant to be pontificating on the topic.
Nothing ex cathedra.
Fact is, what the hell do I really know about it? Love, I mean.
But I am convinced that we very often get whatever it is -- wrong.
And that concerns me, and should concern everyone.

I feel that very often the error lies in a misinterpretation of The Displacement of Loneliness.
We find ourselves in the presence of another, and loneliness seems to evaporate.
Is this the criteria by which we measure the depth of our exclusive love?
No.
Or rather…. hopefully not.
This feeling of foundness and belonging is one aspect of a healthy love relationship, but it is not what love is.

I anticipate that what I am about to say will not set well with a lot of readers, but I will say it just the same If we say to another “I am in love with you” I would seriously hope that what we are meaning is something greater than “I am less lonely when I am with you.”

I don’t know about you, but I myself personally would feel quite cheapened and maybe even duped, were I to find that this was the greatest extent of what my lover meant when they declared such a thing to me.
Secondly, never would I myself say those words to another, if that were the greatest extent of what I meant by them. Because it would cheapen their [the beloved’s] worth.
I am convinced, as I walk down the lamplit street tonight, that part of the problem [the seedbed of misconstrusion] lies in that initial perception of loneliness in the first place!
Loneliness is good at inventing many things. And one of those things, is “love”.

“Are you lonely?”
“Yes. At times, very much so.”
“Does being with this other person make you feel less lonely?”
“Yes. At times, very much so.”
“Do you believe this to mean that you are in love with them?”
“Yes.”

I would seriously counsel the above Thrice-Responding “Yes”-Person to consider the degree of stock they are placing in their experience of the alleviation of this disconnected feeling we call “being lonely.”
Is there something worse than being lonely?
My answer would be “Yes, → believing that someone else can ultimately relieve you of it.”
The argument to this response is [in my opinion] the great lie of the ages.
We all have heard the rhetoric on this – “Better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.”
Perhaps.
But there is one thing that is for sure better.
And that is to love and win.
And I believe that our best shot at doing such a thing is to deal with our “loneliness” issues before we are tempted to abandon them with the next flash of cute eyelashes we encounter, be they male or female.
Let’s deal with our loneliness issues before they deal with us.
Then, perhaps we can be part of the following scenario, instead of the former one:

“Are you lonely?”
“No.”
“Does being with this other person allow you to continue feeling as good about your identity as you do when you are without them?”
“Yes. At times, better.”
“Do you believe this to mean that you are in love with them?”
“Not necessarily, but it’s an encouraging sign. My concept of love is not directly linked to how someone else makes me think about myself.”

For further reading, an old poem of mine may be in order [CLICKEROO]
Cheers!
-- Cip

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Saturday, October 18, 2008

What Is A Book?: A Saturday Poem


What Is A Book?


Ten thousand lifetimes.
Best thoughts of a best person.
An experience sandwich.
Vicarious intelligence.
The only proper moral education.
Living beyond oneself.
The surest reason for eyes.
My favorite walls.
The opposite of exaggeration.
Three thousand lifetimes.
An innate obsession.
Reason for a lunar landing.
Terminus of potential.
Potential of terminus.
Terminus ante quem.
Published power.
Vapor trail of what matters.
What keeps me, me.
Impossible to exaggerate.
More than one life.
Time.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Friday, October 17, 2008

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Just Wondering...

Hey, have any of you ever sort of marveled at how perfectly round the moon is?
Yesterday, as I pulled into the Starbucks parking lot after work, the moon was low on the horizon… it was not even dark out yet, and WOW!
The moon was the size of about three of four normal moons.
AND SO ROUND.
What I mean is – if it is supposed to be a cast off of Earth [which in itself, is pretty severely round also, am I wrong?] like… how is it that it is so PERFECTLY ROUND?
I mean... don't get me wrong. I'm not asking Sarah Palin here.
But seriously, it is a question I would like to put to someone like Richard Dawkins when he and I get to heaven.

In my [pseudo-atheistic] imagination, I would think it should have some aberrations to it, some jagged pieces and whatnot. This perfect roundness really floors me.
I could see if maybe one side of it was squared off a bit. Or looked like an ostrich.
But my God, it’s so PERFECTLY….. as in FLAWLESSLY round.

Hey, speaking of roundness – have you ever seen this kid that can draw a PERFECTLY round circle on a chalkboard? It’s pretty neat.
If you are as bored as me right now…CLICK HERE!

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Splash du Jour: Thursday

I want to get married but I look at husbands the same way I look at tattoos. I want one, but I can’t decide what I want, and I don’t want to be stuck with something I’d grow to hate and have surgically removed.
Margaret Cho

Have a great Thursday!

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Splash du Jour: Wednesday


A whale ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.

-- Herman Melville, 1851 –

Have a great Wednesday!

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Splash du Jour: Tuesday

Norman began to hyperventilate when he saw the doctor.
“I’m sure I’ve got liver disease.”
“That’s ridiculous,” said the doctor. “You’d never know if you had liver disease. There’s no discomfort of any kind.”
“Exactly!” said Norman. “Those are my precise symptoms.”

Have a great Tuesday!
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Monday, October 13, 2008

Splash du Jour: Monday

I love Thanksgiving turkey... it's the only time in Los Angeles
that you see natural breasts.


-- Arnold Schwarzenegger –

Happy Thanksgiving Day, Canada!
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Saturday, October 11, 2008

Wallpaper: A Saturday Poem












Wallpaper

The wallpaper saved us.
I suppose we have never argued, like tonight.
There were times when you may have had a point,
But mostly no. Or, I cut you off mid-yap.
But my God you were a grizzly with threatened cubs.
My fingers, tapping the table, were all I had.

You stormed off, as you should have.
At that moment there was not much more to growl,
And the windows were fogging up. That slamming
Of the bedroom door made me writhe in my skin
Till I faced the wall. And my proof-reading mind
Found the out of sync fleur-de-lys.

Or whatever they are called. The paisley things.
They do not match.
And I remembered not only the laughter,
But how the whole sheet fell on us as we placed it.
Back then when Love usurped the tornado warnings
And we lost our patio furniture to the vortex.

When your breath was lilac and wonder of wonders,
Mine, too. When we both thought us attractive.
When our square words fit the round holes, and I am
Walking toward that door you slammed, minutes ago.
I am going to love you tonight. Some things
Do not line up, but goddamn it, they stick!

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Cyber-Progress











Hey, just a shout-out, here.
This Bookpuddle posting is number
1,560.
I have not ever paid
one cent for the usage of this site.
If there is one thing I loathe, it is ingratitude.
Far be it from me, to be guilty of such a thing.
How do you do it, Blogspot?
Let’s be serious.
Is there even one area of our………. transactive life, where so much would be given to someone else, for
FREE?
It doesn’t even make sense.
So.
THANK YOU!
I’m glad it exists.
Because I am miserably
poor.
And I like to
write.
And I like the idea of other people
reading what I write.
And I like the idea of not having to
pay for the former, while enjoying the benefit of the latter.
How far we have come from the idea of tying messages onto the legs of certain pigeons!
I love it.
Shall use it, for as long as I can.

***********

Friday, October 10, 2008

Splash du Jour: Friday

In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche, 1878 --

Have a great Friday!

Thursday, October 09, 2008

Where's My Chips?

Now that's what I call a terrific hamburger!



It makes me hungry.
Where's the nearest Nando's?
*********

Splash du Jour: Thursday

(A truly modern man, William Rackham is what might be called a superstitious atheist Christian; that is, he believes in a God who, while He may no longer be responsible for the sun rising, the saving of the Queen or the provision of daily bread, is still the prime suspect when anything goes wrong.)
-- From The Crimson Petal and the White, by Michel Faber –

Have a great Thursday!

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

No ID Required

Ahh, yes!
In my mailbox tonight was a notice from Canada Post that my new Saramago book is in. Unfortunately, I was out!
When I am not home to receive parcels from the postman [and I am NEVER… not once have I been here for such an event] the parcel goes to a place down the street, Desjardins Pharmacy, and I have to go pick it up.
The little Phillipino lady behind the counter knows me well. In the past I was required to show my photo-ID.
Nowadays, as I walk in the door she is already heading to the side-room where a new book or two will be waiting for me!
And no ID required.
I’m a regular at the Desjardins postal outlet!
So, on Saturday I will pick up this wonderful new book by my favorite living author, Jose Saramago.
It's called Death With Interruptions.
Main idea? As of January 1st, no one dies! As in, people quit dying.
Whatever this guy uses for topping on his Corn Flakes..... I need to get me some!
I can't wait to read this new novel.
In the meantime, however, I have launched out into the deep prostitute-infested waters of a gargantuan-sized book --
The Crimson Petal and the White
, by Michel Faber.
An 896-page brick!
Oh, it is sooooooo good!
I am at page 163 and truly enjoying yet another author destined to become a favorite in my Mile-Long List.

**********

Splash du Jour: Wednesday

Moses trudges down from Mt. Sinai, tablets in hand, and announces to the assembled multitudes: “I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news. The good news is I got Him down to ten. The bad news is ‘adultery’ is still in.”

Have a great Wednesday!

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Splash du Jour: Tuesday

At a meeting of the college faculty, an angel suddenly appears and tells the head of the philosophy department, “I will grant you whichever of three blessings you choose: Wisdom, Beauty --- or ten million dollars.”
Immediately the professor chooses Wisdom.
There is a flash of lightning, and the professor appears transformed, but he just sits there, staring down at the table.

One of his colleagues whispers, “Say something.”

The professor says, “I should have taken the money.”


Have a great Tuesday!

Monday, October 06, 2008

The Great Debate

Hi, all!
In case any of you dear folks missed The Great Debate a few nights ago [and no, I do NOT mean the Canadian one!] here it is, in all of it's Bidenous Palinosity.



Ain't she a doozy of a maverick?
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Splash du Jour: Monday

A ninety-year old man went to the doctor and said, “Doctor, my eighteen-year old wife is expecting a baby.”
The doctor said, “Let me tell you a story. A man went hunting, but instead of a gun, he picked up an umbrella by mistake. When a bear suddenly charged at the man, he picked up the umbrella, shot the bear, and killed it.”
The man said, “Impossible. Someone else must have shot that bear.”
The doctor said, “My point exactly.”

Have a great Monday!

*********

Saturday, October 04, 2008

The Up-Arrow: A Saturday Poem


The Up-Arrow


It was the click of your heels on the
marble
foyer
floor
and the whole open-concept ocean breeze
wafting through that first
threw me off my mark and
then I pressed that button that lit up.

I spread wide the curtains to the night.
Open
the balcony
door
you said, and we watched a cruise-ship dock
while laughter floated up from
our very chairs below, still warm.

Turning, I realized one should be at least
alive
or
dead
because in the few seconds it took you to
throw your blouse on that chair, I knew my
ghost was not going to survive.

Later, in your arms, I turned your face to mine
and
just
then
felt for the first time in my life that from the clicking
to the pressing and the spreading and the
dying, that all of this –
All of it, was why I first breathed.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Friday, October 03, 2008

I Don't Speak Catonese!

My cat, shown here in one of his drunken stupors… my cat Jack is driving me mental.
He meows too much in the mornings.
Let’s be serious now. It’s bad enough that I have to wake up so damn early for work every day, but to be wakened [wokened? How does one say it, exactly?...] to be MEOWED awake before the alarm goes off – No.
This is unacceptable.
And it seems to be getting worse. It’s like he is trying to SAY something.
And I don’t speak Catonese!
I get out of bed all bleary-eyed and go to the kitchen to see if his food dish or water dish is depleted. Nope. There’s stuff in each.
He just looks up at me and MEOWS plaintively.
Is this normal feline behavior?
Is there anyone out there that can translate for me?
Usual mornings go something like this… “Meow! Meowwww!”
[Pause].
Meooooooowwww!”
[Now I’m awake as hell…]
“Meow-meow, meow! MEOWWWW! Meow! Meowl. Meowmeowmeowwwwwww! Meow.”
Is he just hung-over from the night before? Is that it?
He wants some tomato juice? Another beer? WHAT!!!

********

Splash du Jour: Friday

I am an old scholar, better-looking now than when I was young. That’s what sitting on your ass does to your face.
-- Leonard Cohen, 1970 --

Have a great Friday!

Thursday, October 02, 2008

On Borrowing

I happened across a really neat little thing by author Henry Miller (Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn, Plexus, and many other books).... and it made me do some soul-searching.
"One of the first things I associate with the reading of books is the struggle I waged to obtain them. Not to own them, mind you, but to lay hands on them... What makes a book live? A book lives through the passionate recommendation of one reader to another. Nothing can throttle this basic impulse in the human being. Despite the views of cynics and misanthropes, it is my belief that men will always strive to share their deepest experiences. Books are one of the few things men cherish deeply. And the better the man the more easily will he part with his most cherished possessions. A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition. Like money, books must be kept in constant circulation. Lend and borrow to the maximum--of both books and money! But especially books, for books represent infinitely more than money. A book is not only a friend, it makes friends for you. When you have possessed a book with mind and spirit, you are enriched. But when you pass it on you are enriched threefold."
-- Henry Miller –

At the top of this blog is a picture of one wall of my apartment.
It is only one wall, I do have others, and they too have books against them.
I am viciously possessive of this one feature of my life.
Books.
My life has been filled with books, since my elementary school years. My books have always been the most meaningful part of my possessions.
Over the years I have amassed quite a quantity of treasured books, and I only keep the best ones. Those that I read and that do not mean all that much to me, I leave them in the laundry room downstairs for others to pick up, or I donate them to a used book sale or a church library or some such thing. [I never throw them away, of course.]
There have been times when I have filled the trunk of my car with boxes and boxes of books, and given them away. In the past few years, I can recall giving away (no exaggeration), perhaps 20 fairly large boxes of books that I no longer wanted.
But the ones that become a part of my inner world?
No, those stay with me.
And I find it difficult to lend them out.
This excerpt from Henry Miller makes me realize that I am quite finicky about lending my books. I see the logic involved in circulating them, but I just do not trust that when I let the book out of my hands, it will ever return to me. With most of my books, I have a very palpable “till death do us part” vow attached.
The quote by Miller causes me to do some soul-searching, as I mentioned above.
But if the end result of soul-searching inevitably results in any sort of change of heart, or change of mind..... then I have not found my soul tonight.
Because I have thought about it a great deal, and dang it all if the end result is that I still do not want to lend anyone any of my treasures.

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Splash du Jour: Thursday

The important thing is not so much that every child should be
taught as that every child should be given the wish to learn.

-- John Lubbock, 1887 --

Have a great Thursday!
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Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Splash du Jour: Wednesday

I would rather entertain and hope that people learned something than educate people and hope they were entertained.
-- Walt Disney –

Have a great Wednesday!