I Am A Writer Who Writes

Again I have been taken to task for writing of trivial things and told that I should make each blog entry a reflection of my thoughts on one single subject. That I should not flit from this item to that. And that I should edit every entry more closely and polish it until it gleams before posting it. As I (usually) do with my fiction stories.

Hogwash!

That's too much like work, and in truth, I write the blog mainly for the fun of it. I write it for me, and not for its readers or potential readers. If no one at all, or if even a few people read it, then that's all just gravy. I write it the way I do because I take pleasure in writing it the way I do, just as I repeatedly watch reruns of old TV shows... because I like doing it. Because it pleases me.

And that's all I have to say about that.

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Bob Denver was born on this date in 1935

Bob Denver

January 9, 1035 - September 2, 2005

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Black Elk Speaks is a 1932 book by John G. Neihardt, an American poet and writer, who relates the story and spirituality of Black Elk, an Oglala Sioux medicine man or shaman. It was based on conversations by Black Elk with the author and translated from Lakota into English by Black Elk's son, Ben Black Elk, who was present during the talks.

Neihardt transformed his notes to convey Black Elk's spiritual message in a powerful, lyrical English.


In case Native American lore interests you, below is a link to a free .pdf copy of the book.

http://www.humanresonance.org/black_elk.pdf

More about the subject at wikipedia

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Mostly just for fun.

After you have read the below pictured newspaper blurb . . .

. . . see if you can answer the following question:

What is the injury from which Baron Davis is recovering?

Do you suppose that this was a typo
and should have been 'disc' or 'disk?'

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Newt Gingrich (reportedly) said, “I pray before virtually every speech and virtually every major decision,”

virtually
(adv.)
Nearly; almost entirely.

Newton Leroy (McPherson) Gingrich

Gingrich was raised a Lutheran. In graduate school he was a Southern Baptist, and later he converted to Catholicism, Oh Goodness Gracious Me! Could Newt perhaps qualify as an example of a religion flip-flopper?

When I started writing the above it was because I was curious as to what Newt Gingrich meant (within his own mind) by using the word 'virtual' instead of a more 'prosaic' adverb such as 'nearly.'

prosaic
(adj.)
Matter-of-fact; straightforward; lacking in imagination and spirit; dull.

Perhaps Newt didn't want to be thought of as lacking in imagination and spirit, or of being dull. Or as being a big fat 'liar' if he had said he prays before 'every' speech and 'every' major decision.

Why in the world am I wasting time speculating about the mind of a politician?

Good question.

I'll stop.

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"For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk and we learned to listen."
--Stephen Hawking

Long Live The Memory

Elvis Aaron Presley

January 8, 1935 - August 16, 1977

You are always on my mind

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And today is the birthday of:

Stephen William Hawking
8 January 1942 (age 70)

Stephen Hawking Website

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Old Dogs, New Tricks, And Brainwashing

My writers group has been discussing the various foods and dining practices within differing cultures. Since this online group comprises a culturally diverse membership one must take care to avoid accidentally offending those members who at mealtime routinely partake of such questionable delicacies as raw fish...


...and seaweed, squid, octopus, and other such dishes that are not at all related to the good old solid foods I grew up eating, like plain ol' fried or roasted red meats and fried, boiled, or mashed potatoes with a few home-grown garden vegetables on the side.


Most of my family (the younger ones that is) seem to enjoy what I still think of as foreign food like sushi and all such yucky truck... and they docilely go along with the snooty trend of wielding chopsticks when dining out in a Chinese or Japanese or Korean restaurant instead of using sensible forks and spoons. They even practice using chopsticks so that when eating out or even when eating at home they can skillfully and happily dive in and slurp up carton after carton of Asian type take-out.

(I never did figure out how you eat soup with chopsticks.)


I guess it's true that it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks, especially when the old dog is just too stubborn to change old established habits.

Back in my younger days... the 1940s

Well, I am one old dog who still knows what's what, even in today's enlightened world, and I simply will not be brainwashed into believing that eating raw fish and seaweed with a pair of shiny sticks is the proper and acceptable way for a civilized, common sense person to act.

brainwashing --
indoctrination to induce someone to give up basic beliefs and attitudes and to accept contrasting regimented ideas.

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(I hope no reader takes this diatribe too seriously)

Who Cares About The Appendix?

The Big Bang Theory in my opinion is one of the funniest shows on TV and is one I can watch again and again, each time discovering something I had missed in previous viewings. And this happens often, which says a LOT about how my attention tends to wander.

In one episode Sheldon asked, "Do you know what the appendix is for?" (or something like that) and when the answer he received was, "No" he said, "I do." And the scene ended there.

Hilarious!

Later, it occurred to me that I did not know (or had forgotten if I once knew) what the appendix actually does in the human body.

Wikipedia informed me:

The human appendix is a vestigial structure. A vestigial structure is a structure that has lost all or most of its original function through the process of evolution. The vermiform appendage is the shrunken remainder of the cecum that was found in a remote ancestor of humans. Ceca, which are found in the digestive tracts of many extant herbivores, house mutualistic bacteria which help animals digest the cellulose molecules that are found in plants. As the human appendix no longer houses a significant amount of these bacteria, and humans are no longer capable of digesting more than a minimal amount of cellulose per day, the human appendix is considered a vestigial structure.


Aha! So that's why I can't survive by only eating wood.

Wikipedia goes on to say that the appendix may have some other uses not known at this time.

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Geez Louise! Surely I can find something more interesting than human biology to write about.

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On this morning's TV news the reporter on location spoke of receiving credentials that admitted her into the room wherein the Republican candidates were to be interviewed. She said that she had been credentialized. I'd never heard that term before, and thought she must have meant she had been credentialed, or given credentials.

I did a bit of Google research and found that the word credentialized does exist, but its meaning is not synonymous with credentialed. According to the Urban Dictionary, the meaning of credentialized is:

credentialized -- the artificial self-enhancement that people seem to precive themselves to have while they are wearing an official laminated credential on a sponsored lanyard. Such as, for example: She got all credentialized when she went back stage at the concert with her all access pass, living in the fictional world that she is actually apart of the group in concert.

Note: the incorrect spelling of perceive and the use of the word apart instead of a part in the above passage are not my mistakes -- the definition was cut and pasted from the Urban Dictionary.

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While reading a compendium of supposedly humorous sentences lifted from published novels I paused at the following figure of speech describing copulation:

"And then he was fully socketed to her, like a pipe wrench in a crock of warm chili."

I paused because, to me, this seemed to be a metaphor ("socketed to her") enhanced by a following simile ("like a pipe wrench...") -- That's not really why I paused... I did so because I thought the figure of speech was funny as hell. I thought about it being a curious figure of speech a little later.

In that same blog entry I read: "How does a kid from Huntington beach wind up castrating cows in South Texas?" and I wondered about that, since castrating means cutting off the testicles of bulls, not cows which are of course, female.

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I have never read a novel written by Danielle Steel (and I probably never will) but several of her sentences were included in a blog dedicated to revealing horrible sentences taken from published books written by famous authors. Here is one of those sentences:

"You look very pretty today," he said casually, and she stiffened imperceptibly, but he didn't see it.
---Danielle Steel,
(Malice)

Keepin' Busy Elsewhere . . .

As of 1 P.M. Arizona Time I have not found time from my other writing-related project to compose an entry into the blog. If I do so later today, I will post it then.

In place of my missing deathless prose, I will fill in with a couple pictures of a hawk (a red-tailed hawk, I think) perched on a highway light fixture overlooking East Speedway Boulevard.

Taken during my fitness walk day before yesterday

as I was walking West

Then

Taken after passing under the hawk . . .

with my camera nearly facing the sun

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Today Is World Hypnotism Day

Welcome To The World Hypnotism Day Website

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My tweet for today . . .

"My life has been a series of problings into and then back out of pragmaticism."

pragmatic
practical as opposed to idealistic

At times though, I find myself not sure that I actually understand some of the puzzling ramifications of true pragmatism.

Snoopy says it best . . .

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“Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve”
--Erich Fromm

What Makes Art Art?

I discovered long ago that I know nothing of Art. Nor do I even wish to learn. Sometimes I can recognize (what I believe to be) a work of art. But not often.

I am a pragmatic soul.

pragmatic
(adj.)
Dealing with things sensibly and realistically in a way that is based on practical rather than theoretical considerations.

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Pasted below is a photo of a supposed work of art

Is it truly Art?
I couldn't say.

Is this Art?

(I seriously doubt it)

Cormac McCarthy

produces works of art
and I like those works

“Deep in each man is the knowledge that something knows of his existence. Something knows, and cannot be fled nor hid from.”
--Cormac McCarthy

Thomas Harris

is not accused of producing Art,
but I like his work . . . art or no.

“When the Fox hears the Rabbit scream he comes a-runnin', but not to help.”
--Thomas Harris

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It might be artistic if I were to insert a piece of Art here.

But I won't.

No time.

I am busy working on another project.

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“There is no God and we are his prophets.”
--Cormac McCarthy

“How seldom we recognize the sound when the bolt of our fate slides home.”
--Thomas Harris