More important than the immature, yet decidedly funny, retort to the Vegan support group flyer is the alt tag to this image: soyfuckers anonymous.
From the famous (I assume) passive-aggressive note I loved so much.
I only regret that I haven't started the Houston chapter of Soyfuckers Anonymous. Or designed the Bacon is Life logo.
Religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few.
-Stendhal
via Wikiquote
A belief which leaves no place for doubt is not a belief; it is a superstition.
-Jose Bergamin, author (1895-1983)
via A.Word.A.Day
What gods are there, what gods have there ever been, that were not from man's imagination?
-Joseph Campbell
via Wikiquote
Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.
-Napoleon Bonaparte
via quotdb.com
If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
-Voltaire
via Wikiquote
Do you, good people, believe that Adam and Eve were created in the Garden of Eden and that they were forbidden to eat from the tree of knowledge? I do. The church has always been afraid of that tree. It still is afraid of knowledge. Some of you say religion makes people happy. So does laughing gas. So does whiskey. I believe in the brain of man. I'm not worried about my soul.
-Clarence Darrow, American Lawyer and Civil Libertarian
via wikiquote
I have always felt that doubt was the beginning of wisdom, and the fear of God was the end of wisdom.
-Clarence Darrow, American Lawyer and Civil Libertarian
via wikiquote
There are times that I can feel great despair over the human condition. Then I see something like this and, difficult as it may be for some of you to join in my glee, I feel hope.
Rather than choose shame or self-loathing for a genetic condition that falls outside the norm (syndactyly), this person takes their particular set of assets, marries form to function and infuses (an offering, oh mighty pun-gods.) the whole thing with humor. What a marvelous tat, indeed.
Then there is this. I want my driveway covered with lizards.
Have I mentioned that I adore Cory Doctorow? I don't read sci-fi as a rule but most of the random boingboing posts I am drawn to are authored by him.
I'll read his stuff...got to get through Moby Dick first. Which, by the way, is great but not quick read. Halfway there.
In the meantime, I will dream and plot all the ways I can surround myself with beautiful, well-crafted, funny things.
After writing about creativity and divine inspiration, I feel a little crass posting this. Like trading out A Muse for amuse. But I kind of have to. For balance.
Okay, you know this happens regularly. A graphic behind the talking head is not the breaking news. A photo is published that doesn't match the story. Two stories are published side by side that produce an unintended (most of the time, I assume) irony.
Okay, so it's not funny that people died in the ConAgra plant in North Carolina. It's not funny but the juxtaposition of the image is amusing. Not hysterical, just amusing.
Amusing. Like one of the first eyewitness quotes that started: "I was getting ready to pick up a piece of meat off the line and I felt it [the explosion]..." said worker Chris Woods.
Amusing like the atypical comment (as the comment section following most articles is a huge fetid pile of human brain waste) I read: "Explosion...what the heck is in those Slim Jims anyway?"
But my favorite thing about this unfortunate event was the image of a building spewing forth cellophane-encased Slim Jim spears like so many fireworks streamers. That amuses me.
I've kept this particular talk on the back burner of my must-see TED talks. A back burner piled high right now. My daughter just emailed me this same link and helped me reduce that pile by one. Worth far more than the 18 minutes it took to watch...
I don't believe in daemons or spirits but all my life I have felt that creative inspiration was as close to (my limited understanding of) divinity as anything I have ever experienced. I don't feel the need to overanalyze that notion because atheism is just as much anti-certainty about the unknown as it is anti-god.
It is good to feel proud of your "work." But whatever it is, absolute credit is the flipside of total blame...it's not all you. If you believe in the spiritual component, give it due. If you believe in the collective experience of history, share the spotlight. If you believe in capricious Fate (as I do), make room on the podium or the gallows.
So, I add my "Olé!" to hers. And Olé! to the creative souls of my daughter and my son.
From yesterday's A.Word.A.Day:
If your morals make you dreary, depend on it they are wrong.Take that, Puritans.
-Robert Louis Stevenson, novelist, essayist, and poet (1850-1894)
PURLICUE (PUHR-li-kyu)I've highlighted my favorite definition.
noun:
1. The space between the extended forefinger and thumb.
2. A flourish or curl at the end of a handwritten word. Also known as curlicue.
3. A discourse, especially its summarizing part.
On Saturday, May 29, 2004, I gingerly launched into this blog thing in an internet cafe in Madrid. I wasn't even sure I was doing it "right."
For the past five years (minus the one-year hiatus following my exchange student experience when I didn't think this blog was necessary anymore) I have raged, snarked and confessed here. I have waxed poetic, verbose and danced the happy dance. I have made friends and rediscovered the absolute joy of writing. For my dozen faithful readers, lurking and not, I am grateful and touched by your companionship on this journey. For those of you who stopped reading or didn't find my entries compelling, I am grateful to you for stopping by anyway.
For those I've offended, well, move along. Go on.
Jesus, it's starting to sound like I'm breaking up with my blog. I'm not.
[Note: No, I haven't lost my mind and reposted. Last month, thanks to the miracle of setting the publish time for a blog entry to a specific date in the future, I wrote this post.
Then, promptly forgot about it.
So, yesterday morning I dashed off the previous and now redundant post. This is what happens when you try to out-organize yourself. I'm going to go check the draft section of my blog now.]
I was skeptical but this looks amazing.
And if that weren't enough this just in:
"Sendak mentioned in a September, 2008 article in The New York Times that he is gay, and had been living with his partner, psychoanalyst Eugene Glynn, from 1957 until Dr. Glynn’s death in May 2007."
via wikipedia
Okay, it's not just in, as evident by the quote. Am I the last book-loving queer in North America to find this out?
How I love Max. I'm so making a wolf suit for my first grandchild. If and when that ever happens...no pressure.
Enter May.
I feel like I've stepped into the ring everyday this week. Sometimes the opponent was Job Queue or Sorrow or Domestic Repair. Most days (and I am not alone in this) I felt tag-teamed by arthritis, impending salary cuts, swine flu, domestic chores that have no end, etc., all underscored by an atypical desire to flee.
I breathe. I take my walks. I rely on common sense and past experience to know that this bombarded feeling will pass.
The other day a tree roach (for those of you in cold country, read: huge motherfucking roach) crawled up my leg. I yelled, I swore, I danced. Critters are back from their brief winter holiday. It was amusing to watch, I'm sure, and oddly grounding. Sometimes we get balmy days and butterflies. Sometimes we get swampy days and a roach crawling up our pant leg.
