Reflections on 2001, Pope Facts, and More
2001: A Space Odyssey was released on this day in 1968.
I first watched it with Gretel and Zuzu when they were 4 and 2. They really liked it for about a half hour, until people started talking. I told them what was happening, they had a ton of questions. Gretel always asks how monkeys became people. I always tell her a monkey had a baby that was a little like a person, and that monkey had a baby that was a little like a person, and that happened many times until there were people.
The next morning I asked Gretel if she knew who made the rocking chair she was sitting on. I said it was not me, not grandpa, not great-grandpa, but it was great-great-grandpa who built it. I told her he died, that was going to be her next question. She asked how he died. I said I think a monkey hit him on the head with a bone. She said it's not nice to say funny things about people who died. I told her she was right. Evolution continues!
* A highlight of last night was when I told them that the monkey was using a tool so he was becoming a person and Zuzu said, "I can use tools!"
** It's a lesson for much later, but one day Gretel will learn that you can joke about death. A good example is when I told Emma's mom that my great-grandma died of cancer of the craw. Her mom had heard of things getting stuck in people's craws but didn't realize you could catch craw cancer. You can, it's deadly.
*** I didn't lie to Gretel- it's true that you can't joke about death... with toddlers. Obviously.
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Stanley Kubrick, interview, 1963- "The whole idea of god is absurd. If anything, '2001' shows that what some people call 'god' is simply an acceptable term for their ignorance. What they don't understand, they call 'god'"
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Blondie- Dreaming (live)
Perfection.
https://fb.watch/jFfolTMSpK/?mibextid=irwG9G
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Someone was complaining about their post being removed without notice from the administrators on a Three Stooges profile. Someone commented:
Don’t major on dah minors Grapehead!
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I could watch trick shots all day.
https://www.facebook.com/reel/526323876280912?sfnsn=mo&s=F5x8gs&fs=e&mibextid=6AJuK9
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Daddy School tonight. Foosball again, we watched My Neighbor Totoro, found Venus, learned about some Unusual Creatures, and Zuzu read The Farmer and the Clown (it has no words) while Gretel narrated what was happening. They both beat their records for naming presidents.
I asked Gretel what she wanted to add- "Tonight it was so fun for Daddy School."
Then she asked how many points she got tonight for Daddy School.
Daddy- "You don't get points for Daddy School! You just get to know things!"
April 2, 2020
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Zuzu gave me a note. I think we watched at least part of it everyday for several weeks now.
April 2, 2020
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The little bug-catcher had fun at the park.
April 2, 2017
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If he had told us this simple truth during the campaign, would have he received one electoral vote?
April 2, 2017
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There's a simple trick to being able to read a lot- don't read good books, only read the best books.
April 2, 2011
Postscript- we had Gretel 2 years later and a few books I was reading sat on my desk for 9 or 10 years.
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I got this email from Dead At Your Age today- "At your exact age, Mitch Hedburg died of an overdose of heroin and cocaine. He was a stand-up comedian known for one-liners and non sequiturs." Sal Mineo yesterday. Someday I'LL be dead at my age.
April 2, 2011
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In the airport ready to leave for Rwanda, trying and failing to forget about the USS Indianapolis.
April 2, 2010
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Bob Dylan- great musician, but THE BEST disc jockey. Here he is introducing Coffee and TV by Blur on Theme Time Radio Hour:
“You know, at one time coffee was believed to be the drink of the devil. When Pope Vincent III heard about this, he decided to taste the drink before banning it. In fact, he enjoyed coffee so much he wound up baptizing it, stating, “Coffee is so delicious it would be a pity to let the infidels have exclusive use of it.” I also feel that way about coffee. And about TV. And about Blur."
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From a logic quiz:
Which answer in this list is the correct answer to this question?
1. All of the below.
2. All of the below.
3. All of the above.
4. One of the above
5. None of the above.
6. None of the above.
Answer: I don't know
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Kurt Vonnegut's son, writing about one of his father's favorite jokes:
One of his favorite jokes was about a guy who was smuggling wheelbarrows. Every day for years and years a customs agent carefully searched through this guy's wheelbarrow. Finally, when he was about to retire, the customs agent asked the guy, "We've become friends. I've searched your wheelbarrow every day for many years. What is it you're smuggling?"
"My friend, I am smuggling wheelbarrows."
Kurt would often laugh so hard at his own jokes that he would end up bent in half, looking up with his head in his lap. If it started a coughing fit, it could get a little scary.
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David Shields, Reality Hunger.
"I love literature, but not because I love stories per se. I find nearly all the moves the traditional novel makes unbelievably predictable, tired, contrived, and essentially purposeless. I can never remember characters’ names, plot developments, lines of dialogue, details of setting. It’s not clear to me what such narratives are supposedly revealing about the human condition. I’m drawn to literature instead as a form of thinking, consciousness, wisdom-seeking. I like work that’s focused not only page by page but line by line on what the writer really cares about rather than hoping that what the writer cares about will somehow mysteriously creep through the cracks of narrative, which is the way I experience most stories and novels. Collage works are nearly always “about what they’re about”—which may sound a tad tautological—but when I read a book that I really love, I’m excited because I can feel the writer’s excitement that in every paragraph he’s manifestly exploring his subject."
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When Freud was suffering from cancer of the jaw he declined pain medication saying, "I'd rather think in torment than not be able to think clearly."
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I love this meme:
Samurais were officially disbanded in 1867. A fax machine (initially called a "printing telegraph") was invented in 1843. Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865. That means that for a 22 year period, it was possible for samurais to send a fax to Abraham Lincoln.
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If a joke is someone's idea of violence, then by definition their idea of violence is a joke.
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Studies show that you can turn students more conservative by having them reflect on death, and you can turn them more liberal by having them imagine that they're superman.
The more insecurity they feel, the more conservative they become, and the more secure they feel, the more liberal.
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Oh goodness, the Tragedy by the Sea picture was taken on this day in 1954. I don't want to talk about it. Why did I even bring it up?
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On this day in 1979, a Soviet bio-warfare laboratory in Sverdlovsk accidentally released airborne anthrax spores, killing 66. That was just eight days after Three Mile Island.
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On this day in 1980, Jimmy Carter signed the Crude Oil Windfall Profits Tax Act into law. Knowing nothing else about it, it sounds pretty reasonable! I wonder whatever happened to that.
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On this day in 2015, four men pulled off what was called the "largest burglary in English legal history,"
stealing items worth up to £200 million from an underground safe deposit facility in London's Hatton Garden. I can't help it, I'm always thrilled when people pull off heists. My mirror neurons fire, and it's almost like I'm feeling the rush they must feel once they realize they got away with it. I wonder if this has something to do with the recurring nightmare I've had throughout my life where the police are after me, I know I'm guilty, and I know I'm going to need to be in hiding forever.
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Just a little bit of corruption here.
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Charlemagne, Frankish king and perhaps my 30x great-grandfather was born on this day in 747.
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The personification of genuine class, Alec Guinness was born on this day in 1914. He famously played Ben Kenobi in Star Wars, even more famously Lisa Simpson's friend pointed out that his name was an anagram for "genuine class."
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Don Sutton was often suspected of doctoring baseballs. Once while searching him, umpires found a note which said, "It isn't here but you're getting warmer."
He joined us on this day in 1945.
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Ron Paolillo joined us on this day in 1949, a week after my dad. He played Horshack on Welcome Back, Kotter.
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Other notable birthdays- Émile Zola (1840), Dr. Demento (1940), Emmylou Harris (1947), Camille Paglia (1947), Pete Incaviglia (1964), Rodney King (1965), Pedro Pascal (1975)
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On this day in 2005, Pope John Paul II died. I'm no fan of his, but in the spirit of us all being equal in death, I'd like to point out that he somewhat humorously said that "of all the unimportant things, soccer is the most important."
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Albert Einstein versus Stephen hawking: Epic rap battles of history.
"There are ten million million million million million million million million million particles in the universe that we can observe. Your mama took the ugly ones and put them into one nerd."
https://youtu.be/zn7-fVtT16k
April 2, 2011
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Screenrant- 32 greatest unscripted movie scenes.
So many goodies, very Kubrick heavy. I would add the squirrel hopping on top of the stump in The Seventh Seal.
http://screenrant.com/greatest-unscripted-movie-scenes/
April 2, 2014
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Chomsky agrees with Gandhi that persuasion is a form of violence, and that if you have the power to persuade you should suppress it. You should illuminate the truth as you see it, and if it’s indeed true, they will agree without persuasion. Huh, how about that?
https://youtu.be/Ml1G919Bts0
April 2, 2016
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Patsy Cline- Walkin' After Midnight (live)
https://youtu.be/EK8Yy5RB9po
April 2, 2017
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New York Times- Sinclair Made Dozens of Local News Anchors Recite the Same Script
Approaching maximum 1984iness.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/02/business/media/sinclair-news-anchors-script.html
April 2, 2018
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100% on the money, Nader's letter to Trump January 22nd. Wouldn't you want to have someone like that as an advisor? Who else was that right that early? So impressive.
https://nader.org/2020/01/22/an-open-letter-to-donald-re-quickly-spreading-virus-raises-fears-across-china-washington-post-1-21-2020/
April 2, 2020
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Spencer Moore- Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow
https://youtu.be/eu6X5hJ2qhU
April 2, 2021
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Sophocles- "The truth is always the strongest argument."
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Joni Mitchell- "Ask anyone in America where the craziest people live and they'll tell you California. Ask anyone in California where the craziest people live and they'll say Los Angeles. Ask anyone in Los Angeles where the craziest people live and they'll tell you Hollywood. Ask anyone in Hollywood where the craziest people live and they'll say Laurel Canyon. And ask anyone in Laurel Canyon where the craziest people live and they'll say Lookout Mountain. So I bought a house on Lookout Mountain."
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Berkeley- "Few men think; yet all have opinions."
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Mitch Hedberg- "I think foosball is a combination of soccer and shish kabobs."
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Joseph Campbell- "I don't think people are looking for the meaning of life so much as they are looking for the experience of being alive."
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Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life- "The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference."
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Walt Whitman, Song of Myself- "Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes."
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John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces- "I mingle with my peers or no one, and since I have no peers, I mingle with no one."
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3 Dumb Short Jokes of the Day:
Wife says to her programmer husband, "Go to the store and buy a loaf of bread. If they have eggs, buy a dozen."Husband returns with 12 loaves of bread.
Communism jokes aren't funny unless everyone gets them.
What do the movies titanic and the sixth sense have in common. Icy dead people.
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