The Tharpe-Einstein Theory of Bob Dylan, Modern Ovid, and More

It's Henrik Ibsen's birthday, born on this day in 1828.

"I don't imagine you will dispute the fact that at present the stupid people are in an absolutely overwhelming majority all the world over."

The fact that that is still true, gives me great hope for the future.

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Having a nice morning with my kids. We're eating blueberry chocolate chip pancakes (for our brains) and watching the History Channel's 42 Ways to Kill Hitler.

March 20, 2021

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I see a lot of posts recently in the vein of- "Don't be afraid, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself!"

Are these the same type of people who would see the tiger stripes among the tall grass and look the other way? Would they tell us that statistically we are more likely to be killed by a hippopotamus? Would they tell their group not to worry, because the tiger will probably only catch the slowest among them?

Or in this case would they correctly assess the situation and use fear for its intended purpose of snapping them into action to protect themselves and others? 

Those people would not be living fearful lives, as some seem to believe. They would be assessing a credible threat and lowering the likelihood of dying by adapting. No fear, no adaptation. Adapt as long as necessary, and live on.

March 20, 2020

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Joseph Campbell, who spent his life studying mythology and comparative religion, has an interesting definition of God:

"God is simply our own notion of something that is symbolic of transcendence and mystery."

March 20, 2019

God as metaphor.

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Walking in the snow, with President Buchanan looming.

March 20, 2018

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I'm proud to say I'll never run a marathon. It seems so boring following through after you make the plan. 

"Run 3 miles every other day for two weeks..."

It's too boring to even write out the next step. Knowing that I could make the plan and follow through is more than enough for me.

By simply having the thought and knowing I could do it, it's as if I accomplished the goal. Good thing too, because that frees me up for something more valuable, like writing a book for instance. This book, in fact. If you want to consider this a book. 

So maybe I will run a marathon after all, but the marathon is a metaphor. Not enough metaphors around these days, everything is literal. There are literally not enough metaphors. Metaphors could save our society. Jesus is a metaphor. Is this book my Jesus? Will it save me? No. Will it save something of me? Perhaps.

(Incidentally, Facebook is a metaphor for actually hanging out and talking. Perhaps that's one metaphor we could do without. Just in case you were wondering, "What's the Meta metaphor for?")

After Alfred Hitchcock was done making the storyboards for a new movie, he considered the project essentially done. The rest was just the bother of directing it and putting it together. The plan was what mattered, the rest was just a hassle. 

Following through on what you know you can accomplish is just a needless waste. Unless you want something lasting.

Yep, work your whole life for something and there is a slight chance you'll be remembered in 100 years, a slight chance your great-great-grandkids will know your name. I do happen to know the names of my 16 great-great-grandparents. 

Adam Kreider

Margaret Denlinger

Levi Wenger

Sarah Hershey

Albert Smith

Anna Dosch

Henry Martin

Mary Ann Hess

Richard Schnader

Kathryn Witwer

Phares Henly

Clara Weidman

Isaac Newton Haller- 137 years old today

Emma Kilhefner

Clarence Moyer

Sallie Palm

I know very, very little about any of them. I met with my great aunt to discuss Henry Martin and Mary Ann Hess, and do you know what she told me? Mary Ann Hess used to smoke a corn cob pipe. That's what's known about her. These people all died between 1902 and 1973. I have pictures of almost all of them, but other than that, almost all that is known is their two dates. 

The other 20,000 dates are arguably more important, but we only know what happened on the first and last. These are the grandparents of my grandparents, you would think that more would be known. Okay, maybe you wouldn't think more would be known, but you would wish that more would be known.

My great uncle Barry confirmed this separately, saying that almost nothing is left of the person after going back four generations. He constructed a massive tomb for himself and his wife, with all of the things they like sandblasted into the side- TV shows, pets, etc. 

All these lives seem so distant, yet at the moment, someone 123 light years from earth, looking at us through a telescope, would be looking at a world in which they all exist.

Time is strange like that, and consider this- I'm talking to you from the past. For all I know, I could be long dead as you read this. For all I know, I currently have no consciousness, from your perspective. How's that possible? 

In his book Sum, David Eagleman wrote that one definition of death is when somebody speaks your name for the last time. So on the outside chance that someone sees this writing in the distant future, perhaps some distant descendant, my name is Ben Kreider. 

But on the more important matter of bodily health, perhaps I'll just keep running. After all, I came up with the idea for this book while running.

March 20, 2018

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Truth Check: In October Kellyanne Conway said "Most of the honest people I know are not under investigation by the FBI."

TRUE!: Less than 50% of the people she considers honest are indeed not under investigation by the FBI.

March 20, 2017

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I've heard some say that people are nitpicking Trump. Yeah right, a better analogy is that people are Trump-picking a nit.

March 20, 2017

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Shaq believes the world is flat? Well I believe Shaq's brain is flat, how about that?

March 20, 2017

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"Must find leaker now." People say that the president speaks at a 4th grade level but I disagree. He speaks at a college graduate level, but for a Frankenstein.

March 20, 2017

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Yesterday, in what seemed like a fraction of a second, Zuzu yanked my beard, scratched my face and pulled my nose, HARD. In the middle of the night she poked me in the eye, thus completing her transformation into the fourth stooge.

March 20, 2016

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I'm glad to see Obama visiting Cuba, definitely a defining moment of his presidency. 

Concerning the embargo, Reagan's Secretary of State, Alexander Haig, was once asked how he justified smoking Cuban cigars. He replied that he preferred to look at it as burning Castro's crops to the ground. Clever.

March 20, 2016

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Ricky Gervais and Sam Harris have a joint podcast comprised of very funny telephone calls between them. A recent one on the value of living an authentic life by not lying ended with a bang:

Ricky- "Well in conclusion, if you want your kids to know the truth, and understand the harsh realities of life, in order to prepare them, you should not only get them a dog, but you should get them a very sick dog."

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Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin was published on this day in 1852. There might not be a more important book published in the history of our country.

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On this day in 1995, the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo carried out a sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, killing 13 and wounding over 6,200 people.

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That's bad, but as bad as the Iraq War, which began on this day in 2003. Nobody knows how many people died, but more than 13. Millions displaced?

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Vonnegut's daughter Nanny, on So It Goes- "I think it's like a mantra that goes through his head, a way of coping."

It works!

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Birthday of Ovid, born in the ancient times, 43BC.

"Let others praise ancient times; I am glad I was born in these."

I feel the same way Ovid. Wait, do I agree with Ovid or not?

He had some advice for the Ukrainians too:

"Happy are those who dare courageously to defend what they love."

And a warning for Putin:

"Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence."

And of course he had good general advice for us all:

"Chance is always powerful. Let your hook be always cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be a fish."

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On this day in 1915 Sister Rosetta Tharpe was born and Albert Einstein published his paper on general relativity. One was a heavy influence on Bob Dylan's music, and the other explained how the conglomeration of molecules we call Bob Dylan exists in space-time. 

 

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Born on this day in 1922, Carl Reiner would have been 100 today, but he died at 98. "Every morning, I would look at the obituaries before I had breakfast. If I was not in it, I would have the breakfast."

This morning for breakfast I had bacon, eggs, hash browns, strudel, and two vanilla cappuccinos, and I dedicate it to him.

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Other notable birthdays- B. F. Skinner (1904), Fred Rogers (1928), John de Lancie (1948), Spike Lee (1957), A. J. Jacobs (1968)

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On this day in 1968, the Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer no longer existed in space-time. He made haunting films, meticulously perfected. He made 8 features in the 20's, then somehow one in the 30's, one in the 40's, one in the 50's, and one in the 60's. He still defines film austerity. The Passion of Joan of Arc is required viewing.

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On this day in 1995, Thomas J. Grasso was put to death in McAlester, OK. He strangled an elderly woman with her own Christmas lights, stole $8 from her purse and $4 from around the house. He later sold her television for $125. He also murdered an elderly male and stole his social security check.

His last meal- two dozen steamed mussels, two dozen steamed clams, a double cheeseburger from Burger King, half-dozen barbecue spare ribs, two strawberry milkshakes, half a pumpkin pie with whipped cream with diced strawberries, and a 16-ounce can of spaghetti with meatballs, served at room temperature.

In a final statement to the press an hour before his execution, he said, "I did not get my Spaghetti O's, I got canned spaghetti. I want the press to know this."

Something just dawned on me, after each of these elaborate last meals, it's somebody's job to clean out the person's stomach.

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Harry Winogrand

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Mother Jones on Income Inequality

Are conservatives against the redistribution of wealth in principal, or only against the redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor?

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph

March 20, 2011

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https://www.olibeale.com/james-face

Funniest thing I've seen in awhile! This guy slightly altered his friends face, just enough to be hilarious.

March 20, 2011

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Jimmy Carter would prefer Trump to Cruz, for what it's worth. “I think I would choose Trump… which may surprise some of you, but the reason is Trump has proven already that he’s completely malleable. I don’t think he has any fixed opinions that he would really go to the White House and fight for.”

March 20, 2016

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The Marginalian- Wabi Sabi: An Unusual Children’s Book Based on the Japanese Philosophy of Finding Beauty in Imperfection and Impermanence

https://www.brainpickings.org/2010/11/11/wabi-sabi/

March 20, 2016

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The Hill- Survey: Only 43 percent can name a Supreme Court justice

I'll bet! How many can you name?

I forget the exact percentage I heard before...but it's something like 30% can't even name the three branches of government. It explains a lot.

http://hill.cm/y7cJc4j

March 20, 2017

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Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking- "We are imperfect mortal beings, aware of that mortality even as we push it away, failed by our very complication, so wired that when we mourn our losses we also mourn, for better or for worse, ourselves. As we were. As we are no longer. As we will one day not be at all."

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Sopranos:

FBI Agent- "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.x

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Carlos Alcaraz: "Watching Roger Federer is like looking at a work of art. It's elegance, he did everything magnificently. I became enchanted by him."

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Benjamin Franklin- "Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it."

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Christopher Morley, Where the Blue Begins- "There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way."

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Dale Carnegie- "Improving yourself is a lot more profitable than trying to improve others."

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Mark Twain- “I don't like to commit myself about Heaven and Hell, you see, I have friends in both places.”

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Philip Roth, American Pastoral- "He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach - that it makes no sense."

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Herzog- "Every man should pull up boat over a mountain once in his life."

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Steinbeck- "The free exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world."

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Bukowski, on writing:

unless it comes out of

your soul like a rocket,

unless being still would

drive you to madness or

suicide or murder,

don't do it.

unless the sun inside you is

burning your gut,

don't do it.

when it is truly time,

and if you have been chosen,

it will do it by

itself and it will keep on doing it

until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

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#1390 from the Limerick Collection:

There was a young man from the Coast

Who received a parcel by post. 

It contained, so I heard,

A triangular turd

And the balls of his grandfather's ghost.

(Someone was drinking.)

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