Interesting "Q" & A....

Sometimes at work I will have the radio playing.
Usually on CBC.
I like to hear the news segments, etc... it's always good to know if [for instance] a local Ontario earthquake just took place, or if the tremor I just felt was [as usual].... just gas!
Anyhoo -- today I happened to be near the radio just as the radio program "Q" was on -- with host Jian Ghomeshi. He was interviewing Nate Phelps, who is the son of the senior pastor of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas.
For those of you who do not know much about this legalistic posse of believers -- suffice it to say that this particular church is an extremely fundamentalist Christian outfit.
They're what you might call EXTREMIST-Christians.
At one point in the interview, Jian asks Phelps about how he came to a place of renouncing the narrow-minded fundamentalist views of his family.
Phelps described how the apostasy of his brother was a sort of catalyst for his own defection. But then he related a fascinating little story, involving his 7-year old son.
Ingenious lad that I am, I have extracted this one segment of the podcast here with my own camera.... it's well worth a thoughtful listen!
To me, this is as good a reason as any, to not only give a second thought as to what it is we ourselves believe -- but secondly, to reconsider how we may be negatively indoctrinating otherwise-normal children when we say crazy, nutty things to them.

Splash du Jour: Wednesday

Have a great Wednesday!
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Splash du Jour: Tuesday

Have a great Tuesday!
******

EGGSactly What I Wanted

I love eggs.
Chicken eggs.
Not that I ever do it, but I could eat eggs and/or egg-related things, five times a day.
I think I am part raccoon.
Anyhoo -- I have always been troubled by the things you hear about store-bought eggs.
You know, like in the latest Jonathan Safran Foer book [Eating Animals] there is one section where he shows on the page the square footage that most egg-laying chickens are living in……. well, it is the size of a piece of writing paper.
That just isn't right! That can't be good.

But I don't know any farmers at all, much less chicken farmers! In my urban environment, where am I supposed to find such a thing as eggs from normal chickens?
Well --
I was walking through the open air Market yesterday, and lo and behold, a quaint little display case -- showcasing REAL EGGS!
From chickens that run around and eat real food and stuff!
So I bought a dozen of these things.
I fried two of them up this morning.
Friends -- find yourself some real farm-type eggs! I mean, if you are an egg-eater at all, find some farm-fresh eggs. It will change your life.
These things were so good.

It says right on the carton "Roam Free Hens".
And -- "Direct from farm to you."
The difference in taste -- well, all I can say is that it is taking all of my willpower right now to not eat the rest of them.
This particular dozen came from a place called Bekings Poultry Farm…. where chickens run around all over the place in what's called "roam free facilities."
They have "access to nests and roosting areas with open spaces for scratching and dust bathing." They are fed an all-grain diet.
My God!
I myself wouldn't mind living there -- sounds like a terrific deal! Especially the thing about "scratching."
The moral of this blog is just… simply, I am declaring that there IS a big difference, taste-wise, and [presumably] health-wise, in finding yourself some DAMN GOOD EGGS!
I once wrote a little hymn to…. The Egg.
And another, to.... The Chicken.
Which one came first? Even the author can't quite remember!
*******

Splash du Jour: Monday

I believe in perfectionism as applied to art.
If you have the temerity to be an artist the least you can do is go for broke.
-- Barbara Gowdy --

Have a great Monday!
*******

The Power of Literature

I'm reading a novel about elephants.
I'm about 2/3rds through this magnificent book by Barbara Gowdy, called The White Bone.
In all seriousness, all the characters are elephants.
Well, there are humans, yes -- but it's the elephants that have the real talking roles! The humans just make an appearance as slaughterers. Bringers of mayhem and brutal destruction.
If you don't know how to speak Elephant… worry not. Mostly these elephants are talking normal English, and there is a glossary at the front of the book to help with particular elephant vernacularisms.
I will hold off on a review of the book until I am actually finished the thing -- at this point though I must say, it's an engrossing read! Who would have trunk... I mean thunk that elephants have such an intricate social system. Such culture and mythology.

A neat thing happened, as I was reading today in a Starbucks.
Of course, several other people were reading stuff, newspapers, books, things like that. Most people were just talking, etc. However, one elderly lady left the store and as she passed by the plate glass window, I looked up from my reading to see in her hand the very book in front of me. The cover of her book was the same as the image shown above, and I saw it clearly.
I paused.

I am not exactly a BESTSELLER reader. In fact, most of the selections decided upon in my Elite Little Book Club are rather obscure. Not deliberately so, but this is just as it happens -- the importance always being relevance, not sales.
To my knowledge The White Bone, published twelve years ago, is not exactly some sort of present-day chartbuster.
Yet here was a woman, walking past my window, with whom I sensed an immediate affinity -- because, whoever she is, she also knows Mud, and She-Snorts, and Tall Time, and Torrent. She is marvelling at the survival capabilities of young Date Bed. She is now far from my window… but perhaps still in mourning over what took place at Blood Swamp, as I am.
*******

Hitch22: A Memoir

Plain and simple, here is [in a nutshell] why I loved reading Hitch22.
….. are you ready? [drumroll….]
Because I love the author of the thing!
I think that Christopher Hitchens could talk about The History of Brick… and I would be on the edge of my seat, listening. So -- am I a biased reader of his life story?
His memoir?
Yes.
Yes, I am.
And I say all of the above not just for the sake of humor or flippancy -- I say it as a sort of... proviso.
This book was a gem to read. But I am a Hitchens' devotee. I like him. Therefore, I have a predisposition of wanting to know everything I can about him.
About how The Hitch became The Hitch.

This book opens the door, behind which stands one of the most relevant, critical thinkers of our time.
Is he blunt? Crude? Crass? The kind of guest you fear will tap his ashes on your new carpet?
Yes, to all of the above. Guilty as charged.
But rarely have I so delightedly read of someone so well-versed in literature, so burstingly filled with incidental knowledge. So searingly honest about his own shortcomings.
So appropriately charged with the glories of his triumphs.
An unabashed, clear-thinking, near-fearless polemicist.

This memoir shows the reader something other than:
Hopelessly
Incorrigible
Taunt-filled
Curmudgeonly
Hellraiser.

It reveals something more along the lines of:
Hilariously
Intelligent
Tuned-In
Concerned [Connected]
… Hellraiser.

Perhaps my favorite quote from the book is this -- To announce that one has painfully learned to think for oneself might seem an unexciting conclusion and anyway, I have only my own word for it that I have in fact taught myself to do so. The ways in which the conclusion is arrived at may be interesting, though, just as it is always how people think that counts for much more than what they think.

Learn more about Hitchens --> HERE.
Nab a copy of Hitch22 --> HERE.
*******

Splash du Jour: Friday

I sometimes feel that I should carry around some sort of rectal thermometer, with which to test the rate at which I am becoming an old fart.
-- Christopher Hitchens, in Hitch-22: A Memoir --

Have a great Friday!
******

Classic Sarahness

I have been waiting for this moment for a long time now.
I was ordering a coffee at Starbucks and happened to look to the right, where a little display case was featuring the new CD from Sarah McLachlan.
The understatement of the year would be "Cipriano is a fan of Sarah!"
No.
I kind of worship her. [Not in a psycho way, though].
I've been to all The Lilith Fairs. I have never missed a concert. I have ALL her CD's. Some in duplicate.
I will not go into the details of "how"… but I have met her several times, spoken with her, have repeatedly had supper at the same table as her, have gotten drunk from a never-ending icy tankful of Samuel Adams beer while driving through the streets of late-night Toronto on her tour bus [I am not kidding]. Stayed in the hotel room [not hers, but a different one] on her tab.
I think she is the most incredible person and a fabulous artist…. and yet, having said all of this, I've lost track of what she has been preparing for us all.

This new CD, called Laws of Illusion -- well, it took me by surprise.
Needless to say, I immediately bought it.
It is [no surprise] EXCELLENT!
You've got to run out to your nearest…. Starbucks or HMV or Wal-Mart or wherever, and nab one!
Her last real release of new material was back in 2003, with the amazing Afterglow album.
This one is…. well -- it is classic Sarahness.

And everything about her is -- classy!
********

Splash du Jour: Thursday

The worst thing about some men is that when they are not drunk they are sober.
-- William Butler Yeats --

Have a great Thursday!
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All Shook Up!

Well.
At work today, there was a whole lotta shakin' goin' on!
At about 1:41 p.m., [give or take a few seconds of me freaking out] -- umm, the room started to shake.
I was working on the second floor of a massive building, with a floor above us… a floor that weighs about 8 million tons because of what is in there, on that floor.
There was myself and two women in the room.
I was the first to scream. In fact, my exact words were, "What the hell is that?"
But I said it in scream-language.
The whole BUILDING was moving -- it is difficult to describe -- but it doesn't take long for a human being to know that something of real seismic proportion is going on.
And you should not be in a building at that time.
Every man for himself! So...
I pushed my co-workers out of the way and ran down the hall and down the stairs and out the door…. where several other employees were already congregated.
SCARY!
It was a FOR-REAL earthquake thing.
This isn't supposed to happen here where I live. Firmly placed on the ol' Canadian Shield as I am. Seriously, I guess I will just have to wait for Pat Robertson to explain why this thing happened!
Apparently it measured 5.0 on the Richter Thingie, and the epicenter was not very far away from where I was.
You can read more about it --> HERE.
The last time I felt the earth move [so to say]… well, it was a long time ago!
*******

Splash du Jour: Wednesday

People like it when you tell them things, in suitable portions, in a modest, intimate tone, and they think they know you, but they do not, they know about you, for what they are let in on are facts, not feelings, not what your opinion is about anything at all, not how what has happened to you and how all the decisions you have made have turned you into who you are. What they do is they fill in with their own feelings and opinions and assumptions, and they compose a new life which has precious little to do with yours and that lets you off the hook. No-one can touch you unless you want them to. You only have to be polite and smile and keep paranoid thoughts at bay, because they will talk about you no matter how much you squirm, it is inevitable and you would do the same thing yourself.
-- Per Petterson, in Out Stealing Horses --

Have a great Wednesday!
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Splash du Jour: Tuesday

So let us not say, Tomorrow I shall do it, for it is
almost certain that tomorrow we will feel tired. Let us say instead,
The day after tomorrow, then we will always have
a day in reserve to change our mind and make new resolutions.
-- Jose Saramago, in The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis --

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

Splash du Jour: Monday

Question: "Can literature save your life?"
Answer: "Not as a medicine, but it is one of the richest springs from which the spirit can drink. Perhaps it can't do great things for the body, but the soul needs literature like the mouth needs bread."
-- Jose Saramago --

Have a great Monday!
*******

lengthy applause...

The funeral for Jose Saramago took place today, in Lisbon Portugal.
This, from a news release, moved me to tears -- After the official eulogy, the coffin covered in a national flag was lifted to lengthy applause.
I still find it difficult to believe that he is no longer here… here where we are.
And only minutes ago I learned from an equally heartbroken Saramago devotee that there is another novel to be released.
My joy at learning of this is tempered with the fact that it shall be posthumous.
Our last look at his words.
Along with his book of notes, [The Notebook] released just a few months ago and patiently sitting on my coffee-table yonder… what remains for me is to re-read all of his books. Lovingly, and slowly.
You can pre-order The Elephant's Journey by clicking on the image of the book!
Mr. Saramago offered this advice to readers: "I tell them to read my books out loud, and then they'll pick up the rhythm, because this is 'written orally.' It is the written version of the way people tell stories to each other."
Please read --> THIS.
*******

Sorrow Must Have Its Way

It is with utmost sorrow that I return home from my holidays today to learn that my favorite living author is… no longer living.
Portuguese author Jose Saramago has passed away today.
For me there is no greater loss that might have been sustained by the literary world than this one, the loss of this dear man. This icon of our time, a writer whose words and style I have revered since discovering his novel Blindness, and then The Cave.
My very blog-alias [Cipriano] -- my persona, if you will, was borrowed from that of the main character in this latter novel.
I have read all of Saramago's novels. None of them are less than genius.
I have had the honor of being in the man's presence, and hearing him speak.
I have watched him fold his arms across his chest and bow to his audience.
He is one of the most innovative and significant writers of our time, and I shall say no more, for I am grieving.
To say more would be as inappropriate as publicly eulogizing one's own parent, mere hours after they have gone. As though one were anticipating the task.
No. Sorrow must have its way.
There will come a time when I may be able to speak of Jose Saramago in the past tense.
But for me, that time is not yet.

-- Jose Saramago (1922 - 2010) --

In one sense, it could even be said that letter by letter, word by word, page by page, book after book, I have been successively implanting in the man I was the characters I created... I believe that without them... maybe my life wouldn't have succeeded in becoming more than an inexact sketch, a promise that like so many others remained only a promise, the existence of someone who maybe might have been, but in the end could not manage to be.

-- Nobel Prize Speech, 1998 --
*******

The Right Answer

It's a long while since I have posted one of my original poems on Bookpuddle.
I used to do so on a regular basis -- and I do continue to compose, as the Muse takes me. I guess I just don't post them as frequently, for some reason.
It [poem-writing] is something that I enjoy doing on a completely non-trying, thoroughly amateur hobby-only basis. By "non-trying" I mean -- when some words happen to arrange themselves around me, I grab a pen and scribble them down. Or [more likely] tap them out. That is my only role.
If you would like to peruse some of these occurrences, click on the image, above.
In the meantime, here is one that even I myself like to re-visit from time to time…

The Right Answer

Once you asked me about when it was
I knew I loved you. Vaguely I answered
citing a time when we danced so close.

I recalled your perfume, what you wore.
The joke of the night, and what you drank.
The song that a wannabe Iglesias sang.

Truth be known, it was about the books.
If you were locked up for a year, food supplied...
your instant reply, Library, won me over.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010

The Blue Creamsicle

<-- I've been reading the memoir of Christopher Hitchens and drinking this drink!
And I don't even really like booze.
But I am going to share with you a secret recipe.
First -- Hitchens [it's quite a well-known fact] is quite the boozer!
In the book he discusses his special friendships with people like [poet] James Fenton, and writers Martin Amis and Ian McEwan. Of Fenton, Hitchens specifically says, "He also, broke as we all were, invariably had the price of a drink or a smoke about his person, and I am glad that I loved and love him so, because it was he who awakened my thus far buried and dangerous lust for alcohol and nicotine."
Wow!
I've never heard someone PRAISED for how they led another to such dissipation.
But let be.
Hitchens, if nothing else, is a very interesting and unique character.
And now, dear friends, I am going to likewise lead you down a wonderful path of refreshing alcohol-related imbibation! One day you may say of me… [hiccupping all the while] "This one blogger-guy introduced me to this current lifestyle!"
Seriously.
A really terrific drink I have discovered -- I'm going to call it Blue Creamsicle© .
Remember those orange ice-cream filled things? The Creamsicle?
Well, this drink tastes just like that, only… better. Plus, you get loaded.
Here's how you do it:

Put a pile of ice cubes in a glass.
Pour in one shot of really good gin. Like --> this one.
Now add a half-shot of Vanilla Galliano.
Fill the glass to within an inch of the rim, with pink lemonade. [Don't ask questions, just do it]. Now -- a half shot of any kind of Blue Curacao liqueur -- swizzle this all up. This last step turns the whole thing blue and gives it the "orange" taste. Trust me. You will like it.
Even if you don't care for booze all that much. [Which I don't]. It's a really refreshing drink with the added bonus of getting you delightfully cranked!
It will creep up on you, like a staggering atheist in the night! Vive le Hitchens!
*******

Is There Anybody Out There?

Last night we were in my brother's back yard burning wood.
It was not a literal "campfire" because we were not camping. But, after a colossal barbecue, a dozen of us sat around the fire and talked long into the night.
Drinking beer. Swatting mosquitoes.
It was a peaceful, starry night.
During one lull in the conversation[s], I looked up… up into the dotted sky above and posed a question along the lines of --> Is there anybody out there?
I asked for each person to give a response YES or NO, as to whether they believe that anywhere out there, in the eons of space, there is life.
Someone next to me asked me to define what I mean by "life" and I specified the parameters by suggesting life of a sentient nature. Life as intelligent as humans are, or more intelligent.
Then I went round the circle of firelit faces and asked for their response.
Of the twelve of us, only two said, "No."
I did not allow for "maybes" the answer had to be yes or no.
My own answer is an unequivocal YES!
I now extend the same question to my readers. What say ye?
Yes or No?
******

Holidays...

Hi, Friends!
I haven't been around here for a bit because I AM ON HOLIDAYS... in fact, I am in the second week of a two-week holiday and I AM DOING GREAT!
It's so awesome to not be working and to be just sleeping-in late and visiting and reading and eating and drinking and sitting in the sun and sleeping!
See you soon -- back in the land of the living!
********

Splash du Jour: Friday

My face set to a grim and determined expression. I speak in all modesty as I say this, but I discovered at that moment that I have a fierce will to live. It's not something evident, in my experience. Some of us give up on life with only a resigned sigh. Others fight a little, then lose hope. Still others--and I am one of those-- never give up. We fight and fight and fight. We fight no matter the cost of battle, the losses we take, the improbability of success. We fight to the very end. It's not a question of courage. It's something constitutional, an inability to let go. It may be nothing more than life-hungry stupidity.
-- Yann Martel, Life of Pi --

Have a great Friday!
*******

Splash du Jour: Thursday

Your ideal authors ought to pull you from the foundering of your previous existence, not smilingly guide you into a friendly and peaceful harbor.
-- Christopher Hitchens --

Have a great Thursday!
******

Splash du Jour: Wednesday

Have a great Wednesday!
********

Splash du Jour: Tuesday

Salman Rushdie, commenting on my book god Is Not Great, remarked rather mordantly that the chief problem with its title was a lack of economy: that it was in other words exactly one word too long.
-- Christopher Hitchens, in Hitch-22: A Memoir --

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

My New... Book!

My three decades of allegiance to General Motors -- specifically the now-defunct division of Oldsmobile -- is officially over.
<-- Check out my new Owner's Manual.
That is one whopper of a tome!
It's like -- War and Peace.
Or no, Ulysses!
I tend to name my cars. My last one was Big Blue. This one, this new 2010 Mazda 3 shall be known as Grey Wolf.
So far….. mmmmmm….. I am very much enjoying The Wolf.
It handles well, seems so solid.
It smells so -- NEW!
It lives up to the catchy slogan -- Zoom! Zoom!
And a terrific side-effect has happened -- one that may help my waistline [and cardiovascular] issues.
Let me explain -- See, I'm finding that I just can't bring myself to steer Grey Wolf into the many Drive-Thru hamburger joints!
The reasons are well, plethoric:
a) When I really get into hamburger-eating, I can get downright violent. What I mean is, [how do I say this?]… it's not always a clean procedure! I don't want cow-fragments and condiment-ooze all over Grey Wolf's beautiful black interior.
b) The smell. Hamburger odor can be very….. lasting. Unfading. Fabric tends to absorb the smell of well-cooked meat. Just ask Big Blue!
c) Now that I have such an exquisite vehicle, I want to go IN the burger-joint, so that while I am hammering back some burgs, I can look out the window and SEE Grey Wolf. Umm... it's a known fact in the animal kingdom that staring at something you love while devouring prey aids in the digestive process.

HAPPY DRIVING TO ME!

Now THAT'S How To Sing It!

These four girls, The Cactus Cuties, [at the time of this particular clip there were five of them, unless this beer has really kicked in and I'm seeing double...] range in age from 8 to 13 years old.
Truly incredible voices.
Uncle Sam should be proud of them!

Solar / Ian McEwan

You are going to remember Michael Beard.
<-- Protagonist of Ian McEwan’s latest absorbing novel, Michael Beard, by his own admission is "greedy, selfish, calculating, mendacious."
Accurate descriptions all, to which might be added -- womanizing, fat, and a plagiaristic thief of intellectual property.
If this doesn’t sound like the kind of character you would normally find yourself sympathetically attracted to, let me add one thing more: Michael Beard is lost.
And it's this lostness that drives the book’s central theme and allows him a firm place in the reader’s heart.

Centering on the life of fictional Nobel laureate Michael Beard, the novel outlines, details, and over a period of nine years, sometimes mercilessly dissects Beard’s disintegrating life. Beard, a willing participant in a long slate of unhealthy indulgences, is now -- years after winning the prize for his work on the Einstein-Beard Conflation – filled with middle-aged angst, and resting comfortably on his oversized laureate laurels.

As the book opens, Beard, working through his fifth floundering marriage and involved in numerous affairs, is baffled to find himself on the other end of the cheater roster as his wife Patrice threatens to leave him for a younger lover. It is this capsizing that starts the plot’s exploration of the downward plunge that Michael Beard faces. Or - perhaps more accurately and tragically – refuses to face. A master in the art of self-deception, Beard works to keep his frailties at bay until a smoothly executed McEwan plot forces him to a place where there is no longer any place to hide from himself.

Flawed, yet needing to maintain an illusion of worth and dignity, Beard is a character who seems to represent both the best and the worst that Man can be.

Readers may recognize in Beard qualities typically found in the classic tragic hero: a man who has potential for greatness yet who falls short of fulfilling it. Sometimes battered buffoon, sometimes scientific genius, Beard ambles through this brilliantly crafted plot. Slipped into exquisite character study is a subplot of murder, as well as thoughts on global warming, political correctness in academia, and the fixes that a hedonist middle-aged man can find himself thrown into.
It is McEwan's grace and ease in presenting meticulously drawn out, precisely chiseled description that makes him one of Britain’s most readable literary authors... skill that is much in evidence in Solar.

Those familiar with McEwan’s repeated themes will find in this novel his affection for playing with how misperceptions may have far reaching consequences - both in his protagonists and in the reader who is carried along by them. His predilection for the misperceived – and thus illusory - is here presented with both tragic as well as humorous implications. Long adept at utilizing illusions that his protagonists cling to, McEwan places us at the mercy of a narrative voice that is seeing the events from a limited point of view, a solipsistic view that readily and with utter misdirected certainty leaps to conclusions – conclusions that are often ruinously wrong.

In Atonement, McEwan used a character’s illusory view to bring tragic consequences to several characters; in the intense and compact On Chesil Beach, illusion breaks apart a relationship in the havoc of one brief honeymoon night.
In Solar, McEwan handles the havoc that illusion produces with a lighter hand. Two scenes -- one involving confusion over a bag of potato chips and one that involves maneuvering a zipper during an urgent call of nature in the Arctic Circle -- will have book clubs talking - and laughing - long into the night. Appropriately humorous, yet at the same time, they point to an underlying theme of how our lingering illusions of self and others often result in our later undoing.

Beard is the archetypical McEwan character who often wants a thing to be a certain way [through what is said or believed] whether that thing is true in actuality or not. Throughout the book, for instance, Beard, who has a suspicious spot on his hand, does not want to go to the doctor -- he would rather believe the story he tells himself [about his physical condition] than hear a doctor's pronouncement of existing problems. He says, "A diagnosis is kind of a modern curse. If you didn't go and see these people, you wouldn't get whatever it is they want you to have."

Solar is no one thing.
It is not just a novel making sense of our problems in handling climate control.
Nor is it simply a caustic satire on how cynical sellouts for personal gain trump idealism.
It's not just a story of a floundering, yet gifted, man whose flaws and evasions doggedly pursue him.
Nor merely another bright showcase for the radiant McEwan style.
It is all of these.

But perhaps more to the heart of the matter, Solar gives us a bit of an Everyman theme in Beard, a man who does not, will not, or cannot own up to his shortcomings. He is a once brilliant scientist, full of potential, who now plods along piecing unsatisfying relationships together and doing just enough to get by while pursuing his own hedonistic pleasures.
In the end, the saving grace is that Beard has just enough conscience, just enough discontent with his life to make him aware that he doesn’t measure up even to his own lowered standards. But there is no given resolve. No one flying off on the back of a flap-eared elephant. Solar is more like a minor chord struck, and an unrelenting right foot heavy on that third pedal of the piano.
McEwan’s portrayal of Beard works because it can make the reader want to look away, even while seeing some small part of ourselves in him. He is a man pushing life-issues to the back burner, but there is only so much room left on that stovetop. The reader realizes this, and upon shutting the back cover, wonders whether Michael Beard will ever know it.
I encourage you to --> GET A COPY.
*******

Splash du Jour: Friday

As seen on the old show Hollywood Squares:
Q. If you're going to make a parachute jump, at least how high should you be?
A. Three days of steady drinking should do it.

Ahhh….. my holidays are about to kick into gear!
Have a great Friday!
*******

Splash du Jour: Thursday

All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you; the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse, and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. . . .
-- Ernest Hemingway --


Have a great Thursday!
*********

Splash du Jour: Wednesday

The new Coors Light case of beer has a window in it, and when it turns blue, that means you know your beer is cold.
That's way more convenient than the old way: Touching the cans.
-- Jay Leno --

Have a great Wednesday!
*******

Splash du Jour: Tuesday

Shakespeare is in an enviable position. Nobody knows a thing about him, and they can speculate all they like, but what they have to deal with is his poems and his plays. And that's what counts. You don't need biographical information unless the work is unintelligible without it. It's most unfortunate that Dorothy Wordsworth kept a diary. I don't care whether William Wordsworth ever saw a field of golden daffodils, and I certainly don't care to know that he saw them on the seventeenth of March, or whenever it was.
-- Margaret Atwood --

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