What Was It, a Train?
David Attenborough was born on this day in 1926. Can't we make this a holiday or something?
"It seems to me that the natural world is the greatest source of excitement; the greatest source of visual beauty; the greatest source of intellectual interest. It is the greatest source of so much in life that makes life worth living."
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Don Rickles birthday, born on this day in 1926. He spent two and a half years in the Philippines during world War II.
A prank relayed by Frank Sinatra on The Tonight Show:
“Can I tell a story about what this man did to me once? You may have known or heard about this. It’s a true story. This was a long time ago, long before Don got married. I was eating dinner at a restaurant in New York, and I was sitting with some friends, and he came over to the table, and he said, ‘Frank, do me a favor, will you? I'm here with my date and she doesn't believe I know you. Could you come over to the table and say something to us?' I finished my espresso and I went over. “I said, ‘How are you, Don? Nice to see you,’” Sinatra explained. “He said, ‘Can’t you see I’m eating, Frank? What are you doing?’”
Perfect anecdote!
You couldn't get with his jokes today.
"Yeah, I make fun of blacks, and why not? I'm not a black."
Or could you get away with it today? The Don Rickles documentary, Mr. Warmth, is so good. Impossible to watch it and believe he ever said a wrong word. Carlin took the spirit of that joke and put it on steroids. Once everybody is equally offendable, and there's no special status, maybe we'll have equality. How about that as a measure?
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Hey, wait Don Rickles and David Attenborough were each born on the exact same day? Let's make it a holiday for the two of them!
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Attenborough yet once again, “The whole of life is coming to terms with yourself and the natural world. Why are you here? How do you fit in? What’s it all about?”
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It is also Gary Snyder's birthday, born 4 years after Attenborough. He was famously written as "Japhy Ryder" in Kerouac's Dharma Bums.
From Turtle Island- "Nature is not a place to visit. It is home."
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Thomas Pynchon joined us on this day in 1937. Still alive.
"Every weirdo in the world is on my wavelength."
I'd like to agree, but it really does depend how weird.
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A weirdo on my wavelength, Taylor Mead, who lost track of the world on this day in 2012. Here he is in Coffee and Cigarettes, with Bill Rice, drinking god-awful coffee on their break from work.
Taylor : [Taylor is pretending the coffee he and Bill are drinking is champagne] I propose a toast.
Bill : So what should we toast?
Taylor : Oh, god... Paris, in the 1920's. Josephine Baker, the Moulin Rouge. Q'est-ce que c'est...
[mutters, trails off]
Bill : And also, New York, in the 70's. The late 70's.
Taylor : Really? Oh, alright.
Bill : [they touch cups] Cheers.
Taylor : Cheers.
[they sip their coffee]
Bill : Mmm. Délicieux, isn't it?
Taylor : Oh, champagne; nectar of the Gods.
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Thought experiment designed by Judith Thompson, from 1971:
“You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist’s circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. If he is unplugged from you now, he will die; but in nine months he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you.”
Question: Are you obligated to keep the musician alive, or do you cut him loose and let him die because you want to?
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I just had an absurd debate with someone. Big Think posted 10 quotes from atheists and he wrote:
"Atheistic thinking is wishful thinking. It's looking at all the facts, all the complexity, and being wishful that it doesn't mean something supernatural."
I wrote, "In my experience it's the result of a lack of any evidence for an extraordinary claim."
He wrote that he sees evidence literally everywhere and that I might be suffering from confirmation bias. I pointed out that seeing evidence everywhere for what you're trying to prove is the definition of confirmation bias. We went back and forth a little bit in a friendly way, and then he deleted all of his responses! That made me look like a lunatic with both mine just hanging there, but I pointed it out so everyone can see. If I was him I would have deleted the whole thread.
May 8, 2023
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It's almost too bad that Trump is still banned from Facebook... remember when every single day he'd perfectly illustrate exactly how stupid he is? This statement could be the most idiotic notion that anybody ever decided to say out loud, and he said it out loud in front of the world!
"This is why the whole concept of tests aren't necessarily great. The tests are perfect but something can happen between the test where it's good and then something happens and, all of a sudden, she was tested very recently and tested negative. And then today, I guess, for some reason she tested positive." Trump, May 8, 2020
Yep, testing isn't perfect, so he's against the concept of testing! Some people, for whatever reason, just cannot handle the concept of a lack of perfection.
May 8, 2021
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French director, Michel Gondry, was born on this day in 1963.
"Every great idea is on the verge of being stupid."
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All of the hubbub surrounding Elon Musk hosting Saturday Night Live reminds me of one of my all-time favorite comedy bits... Pete Holmes in Dirty Clean talking about Elon wiping his butt. That no matter how modern the guy is, he's still a slave to wiping his butt and looking to see if it's clean. That's our most modern technology in that realm... paper, invented in ancient Egypt. It's on HBO and I laughed the whole way through.
May 8, 2021
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From May 8, 2018, a Washington Post opinion piece on Trump leaving the Iran deal.
"This decision is deeply uninformed, utterly illogical, inimical to the interests of the United States, taken for the pettiest of personal reasons and done with absolutely no plan for what to do next. In other words, it’s pure Trump."
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Apparently Gretel did a YouTube drawing tutorial today at Mama School and learned how to draw a shrimp. His name is Shreemo and he's drinking a juice pouch of sea water, Homestar Runner-style.
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BoJack Horseman- “Fool me once, shame on you. But teach a man to fool me and I’ll be fooled for the rest of my life.”
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I attended a 3-hour PowerPoint presentation with 100 or so Amish kids of all ages and their parents. Their quiet attention was enough to convince me that children aren't natural-born anarchists. That was until the next day when an ambulance and fire truck raced by and I saw the joy in my daughter's eyes.
May 8, 2014
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Robert Johnson joined us on this day in 1911.
Bob Dylan- “Robert Johnson was one of the most inventive geniuses of all time. But he probably had no audience to speak of. Robert Johnson was so far ahead of his time that we still haven’t caught up with him. His status today couldn’t be any higher. Yet in his day, his songs must have confused people. It just goes to show you that great people follow their own path.”
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Author and illustrator, Maurice Sendak, left us on this day in 2012. His Fresh Air interview was one of the all-time great. From Open House for Butterflies:
"Everybody should be quiet near a little stream and listen." Those Amish kids have sat quietly near little streams and listened.
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Attenborough again- “Young people - they care. They know that this is the world that they're going to grow up in, that they're going to spend the rest of their lives in. But, I think it's more idealistic than that. They actually believe that humanity, human species, has no right to destroy and despoil regardless.”
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I got hit with a racquetball so hard I saw stars. Great moments like that let me know I am still alive.
May 8, 2014
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Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now- "Are you stressed? Are you so busy getting to the future that the present is reduced to a means of getting there? Stress is caused by being "here" but wanting to be "there," or being in the present but wanting to be in the future."
I never viewed stress before in existential terms.
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The Nazis surrended unconditionally on this day in 1945. That must have the best birthday present that Harry Truman ever received. He turned 61 on that day. What if they didn't surrender? I suppose he would have dropped one bomb on them and one bomb on Japan?
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On this day in 1965, Bob Dylan stood in an alley next to London’s Savoy Hotel, flipping giant cue cards with lyrics of “Subterranean Homesick Blues" while Allen Ginsberg and Bob Neuwirth, stood in the background.
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On this day in 1971, a 71-day standoff between federal authorities and the American Indian Movement members occupying the Pine Ridge Reservation at Wounded Knee, South Dakota ended with the surrender of the militants.
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Pynchon again:
Dream tonight of peacock tails,
Diamond fields and spouter whales.
Ills are many, blessings few,
But dreams tonight will shelter you.
Let the vampire's creaking wing
Hide the stars while banshees sing;
Let the ghouls gorge all night long;
Dreams will keep you safe and strong.
Skeletons with poison teeth,
Risen from the world beneath,
Ogre, troll, and loup-garou,
Bloody wraith who looks like you,
Shadow on the window shade,
Harpies in a midnight raid,
Goblins seeking tender prey,
Dreams will chase them all away.
Dreams are like a magic cloak
Woven by the fairy folk,
Covering from top to toe,
Keeping you from winds and woe.
And should the Angel come this night
To fetch your soul away from light,
Cross yourself, and face the wall:
Dreams will help you not at all.
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French painter, Paul Gauguin, left us on this day in 1903.
"Art is either revolution or plagiarism."
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Sendak again: "Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.”
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We lost singer-songwriter, Eddy Arnold, on this day in 2008. It's enjoyable to read the lyrics of cattle call. A perfect song.
Whoo-ooh-ooh-doo-di-di
Whoo-ooh-ooh-oop-doo-doo
Whoo-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh
Yod-el-od-el-lo-ti-de
The cattle are prowlin', the coyotes are howlin'
Way out where the dogies bawl
Where spurs are a-jinglin', a cowboy is singin'
This lonesome cattle call
Whoo-ooh-ooh-doo-di-di
Whoo-ooh-ooh-oop-doo-doo
Whoo-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh
Yod-el-od-el-lo-ti-de
He rides in the sun 'til his days work is done
And he rounds up the cattle each fall
Ooh-ooh-ooh-doo-di-di
Singin' his cattle call
For hours, he would ride on the range far and wide
When the night winds blow up a squall
His heart is a feather in all kinds of weather
He sings his cattle call
Whoo-ooh-ooh-doo-di-di
Whoo-ooh-ooh-oop-doo-doo
Whoo-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh
Yod-el-od-el-lo-ti-de
He's brown as a berry from ridin' the prairie
And he sings with an ol' western drawl
Ooh-ooh-ooh-doo-di-di
Singing his cattle call
Ooh-ooh-ooh-doo-di-di
Whoo-ooh-ooh-oop-doo-doo
Whoo-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh
Yod-el-od-el-lo-ti-de
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Gustav Flaubert left us on this day in 1880.
"That man has missed something who has never left a brothel at sunrise feeling like throwing himself into the river out of pure disgust."
Is that so, Flaubert?
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Another notable birthday- Ricky Nelson (1940)
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Another notable deathday- John Fante (1983)
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Happy Mother's Day!
https://youtu.be/XOILKHmZBwc
May 8, 2011
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GQ- Mad German Auteur, Now in 3-D!
Herzog- "I think there should be holy war against yoga classes."
http://www.gq.com/entertainment/movies-and-tv/201105/werner-herzog-profile-cave-of-forgotten-dreams
May 8, 2011
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The Onion- 114-Year-Old Attributes Longevity to Sheer Random Chance
A gem! From the article:
Asked for the secret to her long life, the perky, silver-coifed McCreeley quipped: “Dumb luck. Do any of you have even a rudimentary understanding of probability? Extrapolate the bell curve of life expectancy for a quarter of a billion people and see for your goddamn selves.”
I like her plans for her 115th birthday.
“Plan A is to be rotting in a coffin,” she told us. “Plan B is to do what I do every other day: alternate between brief periods of lugubrious lucidity and tedious stretches of quasi-catatonia.”
http://www.theonion.com/articles/114yearold-attributes-longevity-to-sheer-random-ch,20223/
May 8, 2011
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Onion AV Club- A classic Simpsons episode explores the universality of being Frank Grimes
Yes, one of the best episodes of anything ever...
http://avc.lu/YFDPBD
May 8, 2013
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The Guardian- Stephen Fry investigated by Irish police for alleged blasphemy
Bummed this was dropped! I loved that interview... imagine the notoriety if it went to trial. Blasphemy, haha.
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/may/07/stephen-fry-investigated-by-irish-police-for-alleged-blasphemy
May 8, 2017
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The Onion- Man Confidently Hits ‘Send’ On Worst Job Application Company Has Ever Seen
Hahaha, oh, I've seen so much worse!
https://www.theonion.com/man-confidently-hits-send-on-worst-job-application-co-1819575920
May 8, 2021
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Just a moth. Right?
That moth could start a cult.
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Gary Snyder:
My wife is gone, my girl is gone,
my books are loaned, my clothes
are worn, I gave away a car; and
all that happened years ago.
Mind & matter, love & space
are frail as foam on beer.
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Ricky Gervais, as David Brent : You're all looking at me, you're going, "Well yeah, you're a success, you've achieved you're goals, you're reaping the rewards, sure. But, OI, Brent. Is all you care about chasing the Yankee dollar?" Let me show you something I always keep with me. Just a little book, Collective Meditations, and it's a collection of philosophers, writers, thinkers, native American wisdom, which I, and it's really showing you that, er, the spiritual side needs as much care and attention as the physical side. It's about feeding the soul, yeah? Evolving spirituality. And a foreword by Duncan Goodhew, so... Can I read one-which I think- "If all men were to bring their miseries together in one place, most would be glad to take each, his own, home again, rather than take a portion out of the common stock." It's saying, for the first time, you know, the grass isn't always greener on the other side, don't look over your neighbour's fence and go "ooh he's got a better car than me, ooh, he's got a more attractive wife." We all wake up and we go "oh, I ache, I'm not 18 any more, you know, I'm thirty ni- you know, I'm in my thirties, I'm not-", but so what, at least I've got my health. And if you haven't got your health-if you've got one leg, at least I haven't got two legs missing. And if you have lost both legs and both arms, just go "at least I'm not dead. I'd rather be dead in that situation, to be honest. I'm not saying people like that should be... you know, put down. I'm saying that, in my life, I'd rather not live without arms and legs because... I'm just getting into yoga, for one thing. So...
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Khalil Gibran- "I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers."
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Rick, from Rick and Morty- “It's like the N word and the C word had a baby and it was raised by all the bad words for Jews.”
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Jean-Jacques Rousseau- "Life is not breath, but action, the use of our senses, our mind, our faculties, every part of ourselves which makes us conscious of our being. Life consists less in length of days than in the keen sense of living. A man maybe buried at a hundred and may never have lived at all."
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Rabindranath Tagore- "The main object of teaching is not to give explanations, but to knock at the doors of the mind."
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Einstein- "I never made one of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking."
Of he proved all of them through rational thinking!
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David Hume, Of the Standard of Taste and Other Essays- "Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty."
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Ralph Waldo Emerson- "You become what you think about all day long."
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Norm Macdonald, Based on a True Story: A Memoir- "Before I was famous I had a whole bunch of jobs where all I needed was boots. People would look right past me, or if they did look at me, it was with a mean look. But when I got famous, people would look at me and smile and wonder where they knew me from. If they flat-out recognized me, they'd laugh and dance like they'd won a prize, and I'd just stand there and smile and feel warmth from their love. So the fame made the world, which is a real cold place, a little less cold."
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Christopher Hitchens, God is not Great- “How much vanity must be concealed—not too effectively at that—in order to pretend that one is the personal object of a divine plan?”
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Henry David Thoreau, Walden- "The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run."
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And Rickles, to end it- "Is that your wife, sir? What was it, a train?"
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