Will Will Will What Will Wills, and Other Non-Will Miscellany

Joan Didion, on keeping a journal- "We are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not."

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Always a good time for a classic limerick:

There was a young man of Knute 

Who was troubled by warts on his root. 

He put acid on these, 

And now, when he pees, 

He can finger his root like a flute.

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The same model that was predicting 60,000 deaths by the end of August it's now predicting almost 150,000, due in part to relaxing restrictions. The United States has 4% of the world's population and 25% of the cases and deaths. 

We lost 300,000 people in World War II, and look at that generation's mobilization. Is our response proportional? Were people protesting at state capitals for our freedom to not battle the Nazis? 

The current national response feels like- well we screwed up, so let's give up, ignore the experts, bury their suggestions, discount the numbers, blame others, and just hope for the best.

May 15, 2020

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In Scrabble my opponent opened with CORNIER, and I followed it with ARSEHOLE. It's going to be an interesting game!

May 15, 2020

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After Trump returns coal to its halcyon days, he should focus on uranium.

May 15, 2019

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The far right spin on the president leaking highly classified intel to the Russians: it's not illegal because the president can declassify intel as he pleases. 

The president can also eat dog turds as he pleases, but that doesn't mean he should. That's the difference between laws and norms, or if you prefer, right and wrong... sometimes what you CAN do differs from what you SHOULD do.

May 15, 2017

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I don't really care that the current-and-soon-to-be-not president golfed in VA on Mother's Day while his wife was in NY. It doesn't matter to me at all, but I do know tens of millions who would have cared very much if the previous president did something comparable. And imagine what the current-and-soon-to-be-not president would have said! It's worth mentioning that stuff like this is barely worth mentioning.

May 15, 2017

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Mantra suggestion for someone named Will: "I Will, will will to will what I will to will."

May 15, 2016

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From Mountain Moon Volcano:

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Meme: Plastic is made of oil. Oil is made of dinosaurs. Plastic dinosaurs are made of real dinosaurs.

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Onion headline: Tsarnaev Death Penalty A Warning To Any Other Religious Fanatics Hoping To Be Martyred 

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Abraham Zapruder was born on this day in 1905. Imagine shooting that videotape! 

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If books were half as long I could read twice as many, and I bet we could cut half out of each one with nobody knowing. Sam Harris's Letter To A Christian Nation could be the example. It could have been 5 times as long and it would have been worse.

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Oftentimes I think optimism and realism are opposites (and oftentimes I'm right.)

May 15, 2011

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The greatest reality show never made- Ayn Rand: Living in an African Village.

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Zack Grienke threw and 87 mph fastball to a batter, and then an 87 mph change up.

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Carl Jung, with an answer to the problem of evil... 

"Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health."

There's still a problem though. It might explain a dissatisfying day at work but it doesn't explain children with cancer.

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In 1252 Pope Innocent IV issued the papal bull ad extirpanda, which authorized the torture of heretics in the Inquisition. Pope Innocent??? Sounds like Pope Guilty to me.

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On this day in 1618, Johannes Kepler confirmed his discovery of the third law of planetary motion, stealing a thunderbolt from Zeus.

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Galileo- "My dear Kepler, what would you say of the learned here, who, replete with the pertinacity of the asp, have steadfastly refused to cast a glance through the telescope? What shall we make of this? Shall we laugh, or shall we cry?"

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The first private mental health hospital in the United States opened on this day in 1817 in Philadelphia. It was called the Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of the Use of Their Reason.

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L. Frank Baum was born on this day in 1856 in Chittenango, NY, and from what I hear, there's no place like it.

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Austrian author, Arthur Schnitzler was born on this day in 1862. From Dream Story, which provided the basis of Eyes Wide Shut: 

"It seemed to him a thousand times worse to stand there as the only one unmasked amid a host of masks, than suddenly to stand naked among those fully dressed."

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The French model and actress Arletty was born on this day in 1898. She was Garance in Children of Paradise, currently #72 in the Sight and Sound poll. 

Garance : Please don't be so solemn. It chills me. Don't be angry, but I'm not the way you dreamed. You must understand me. I'm simple, so simple. I am what I am. I want to please those I like. And when I want to say yes, I can't say no.

[Gets up and blows out the lantern] 

Garance : I prefer moonlight, don't you?

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I prefer an eclipse to moonlight. There's a total eclipse tonight, a red one.

May 15, 2022

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James Mason was born on this day in 1909. His Humbert Humbert in Kubrick's Lolita is the perfect anti-hero, you're drawn to him yet repulsed by him. I don't know how he did it.

Humbert Humbert : You're a very persuasive saleswoman.

Charlotte Haze : Thank you. What was the decisive factor? My garden?

Humbert Humbert : I think it was your - cherry pies.

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Meme: "It takes a special kind of con artist to get rich without paying taxes selling people people invisible product for 10% of their income that they can't see until after they die."

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Jasper Johns was born on this day in 1930. "I often find that having an idea in my head prevents me from doing something else. Working is therefore a way of getting rid of an idea."  

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Novelist Paul Zindel was born on this day in 1936. From The Pigman:

"It's kind of spooky when you are caught talking to God everybody thinks you're nuts. They used to call you a prophet."

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Emily Dickinson left us on this day in 1886. If you haven't read excerpts of the letters that she wrote to the woman she loved, you might want to. 

She might want to be remembered by this excerpt of Because I Could Not Stop for Death:

Because I could not stop for Death –

He kindly stopped for me –

The Carriage held but just Ourselves –

And Immortality.

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Edward Hopper, known primarily in pop culture for his painting Nighthawks, left us on this day in 1967.

"The only real influence I've ever had is myself."

Reminds me of Kubrick. He got to that point too. And I think he knew it too, which is why he put a 2001 record in Clockwork Orange. Or maybe that was just for fun.

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June Carter Cash left us on this day in 2003, somehow still incomprehensible to me 19 years later. How could June Carter be gone? Makes no sense.

"Every dog has his day, unless he loses his tail, then he has a weak-end."

I got that from Brainy Quote, haha.

"One morning, about four o'clock, I was driving my car just about as fast as I could. I thought, Why am I out this time of night? I was miserable, and it came to me: I'm falling in love with somebody I have no right to fall in love with."

When asked about touring again, she said, "It depends on how Johnny's feeling... If we go back on the road, we will go together. I'll go where he goes, and he'll go where I go."

Well they certainly went somewhere together. They died within 6 months of each other.

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Jerry Falwell died on this day in 2007. Hitchens famously said, "If you gave Falwell an enema he could be buried in a matchbox."

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Activist singer-songwriter, Utah Phillips, joined us this day in 1935.

"These kids don't have a little brother working in the coal mine, they don't have a little sister coughing her lungs out in the looms of the big mill towns of the Northeast. Why? Because we organized; we broke the back of the sweatshops in this country; we have child labor laws. Those were not benevolent gifts from enlightened management. They were fought for, they were bled for, they were died for by working people, by people like us. Kids ought to know that."

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On this day in 1525, insurgent peasants led by Anabaptist pastor Thomas Müntzer were defeated at the Battle of Frankenhausen, ending the German Peasants' War in the Holy Roman Empire.

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Other notable birthdays- Eddy Arnold (1918), Cate Blanchett (1968), 

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Another notable deathday- Fred Willard (2020)

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On this day in 1989, Bob Dernier hit a walk-off three-run inside the park home run in the bottom of the 12th.

https://youtu.be/0C-mkHSTDmM

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Joseph Cotton was born on this day in 1905.

"Orson Welles lists Citizen Kane as his best film, Alfred Hitchcock opts for Shadow of a Doubt, and Sir Carol Reed chose The Third Man – and I'm in all of them.” 

He was born in Petersburg, Virginia. I visited one time when two inches of snow was forecast. It snowed a foot and a half, and Emma I lived out of the van for 2 days.

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The simple inherit folly, but the prudent are crowned with knowledge. Proverbs 14:18

Now that's a wise quote!

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Every second 400 billion neutrinos pass through our body. I wish the Bible would've even given us even one tidbit like that.

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If you watch only one video of inter-species friendship today, you should make it this one.

https://youtu.be/Iqmba7npY8g

May 15, 2011

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If you've never seen this...

Christopher Hitchens destroys the cult of Ayn Rand

https://youtu.be/4wYR6e9Z6es

May 15, 2011

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Whoever could have ever imagined that Bush would bungle the Iraq War as badly as he ended up doing?

https://youtu.be/hn0sH1gnHm4

May 15, 2011

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IFLScience- Scientists Claim They Have Created Sperm In The Lab For The First Time

So if they create eggs, do they become gods?

http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/scientists-claim-they-have-created-sperm-lab-first-time

May 15, 2015

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White Heat on TCM. Spoiler Alert: He made it Ma, top of the world!

https://youtu.be/OjzKiEs_pHI

May 15, 2016

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McSweeney's- ALLEN GINSBERG’S “HOWL” (FOR SEAN SPICER) by KEVIN HADSELL

Haha!

"I am with you in Washington

Where I, too, struggle with my symbolic space, adrift on an existential quest of my own imagining, since the Inauguration when a cold January wind blew across the land speaking of tombstones and American carnage."

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/allen-ginsbergs-howl-for-sean-spicer

May 15, 2017

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Washington Post- John Oliver blasts Trump over Comey firing: ‘Does he really think we … are this stupid?’

Excellent show last night! Did you know we do have universal health care? We do, but for only one organ, the kidney. NIXON signed a law guaranteeing free dialysis for all. And on the Comey stuff:

“It is the kind of response that makes you ask three questions: One, can he really be this stupid?” Oliver said. “Two, does he really think we as a country are this stupid? And three, are we, as a country, this stupid? And it’s entirely possible the answers to all three questions are yes.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2017/05/15/john-oliver-blasts-trump-over-comey-firing-does-he-really-think-we-are-this-stupid

May 15, 2017

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Politico- Trump’s handling of classified info brings new chaos to White House

Jeesh, chocked full of quotes, such as:

A former senior Defense Department official in the George W. Bush administration emailed, simply, "WTF!!!!!!!"

http://politi.co/2qlQCey

May 15, 2017

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Mother Jones- Hackers Claim to Have Dirt That Could End Trump’s Campaign. After All We Know, What the Hell Could That Be?

Huh, consider my interest piqued. From the article:

“The next person we’ll be publishing is Donald Trump,” the hackers wrote on their website, according to VICE. “To you voters, we can let you know that after such a publication, you certainly don’t want to see him as president.”

That last claim is a bit odd, though: What could the hackers have that is worse than what’s already on the record? Before the last election voters heard Trump admit, on tape, to sexually assaulting women. Although he vehemently denies it, he’s been accused by dozens of women of sexual harassment and assault dating back to the 1970s. He’s been filmed asking Russia to hack his 2016 opponents’ emails. One of his lawyers and longtime fixers is in prison after admitting to lying to Congress about a Trump real estate deal and to campaign finance violations as part of Trump’s scheme to pay off two women who’d claimed prior affairs with the president. His onetime campaign chairman was imprisoned for tax fraud and other financial crimes. He was impeached in December after extorting a foreign government for dirt on a political opponent in exchange for already-approved military aid. According to the Washington Post, he’s told more than 18,000 lies or misleading claims during his presidency.

And, perhaps most viscerally these days, he’s vacillated between downplaying the coronavirus and taking it seriously, portrayed himself as the pandemic’s victim, and encouraged protests against his own administration’s guidelines on how localities should address public health concerns. Nearly 86,000 Americans have died and more than 36 million Americans have lost jobs.

So maybe the hackers have something truly novel and explosive. But given what we already know, that’s hard to imagine.

https://www.motherjones.com/2020-elections/2020/05/trump-hacker-ransom/

May 15, 2020

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John Cleese, cheering up his mom. 

https://fb.watch/kykd3c-zIQ

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Tim Urban- Wait But Why

Q- Are you optimistic about the future of the United States? – Stephanie W. (Washington, D.C.)

A- All signs point to “no”. But American history is full of moments when all signs pointed to no. So yes?

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Emily Dickinson-

Not knowing when 

the dawn will come 

I open every 

door.

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Albert Camus- "Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear."

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Daniel Dennett, From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds- “Comprehension, far from being a Godlike talent from which all design must flow, is an emergent effect of systems of uncomprehending competence: natural selection on the one hand, and mindless computation on the other.”

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Carl Jung- “As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.”

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Hume- "It is an absurdity to believe that the Deity has human passions, and one of the lowest of human passions, a restless appetite for applause."

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Emerson- "It is easy to live for others, everybody does. I call on you to live for yourself."

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Einstein- "What is right is not always popular and what is popular is not always right."

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Henry David Thoreau, Walden- "...for my greatest skill has been to want but little."

Addendum

Myspace Blog

May 15, 2007

The Ponderings of the Amazed

As I finished stocking my last brochures, my intellectual and emotional attention was allowed to drift for the first time in tens of minutes.

I realized the place was empty except for me and a kind of dopey-looking truck driver, and he was looking right at me. He was wearing a bright orange Nike t-shirt and was hunched over a bit. He looked like Kevin Spacey's hypothetical runty, bald brother, meek but alert.

He gave me the traditional trucker greeting- "Howzit going?"

"Pretty good. Just finished for the day. How'bout you?"

"Good, just going to Colorado."

I asked, "What are you hauling?" Us truckers crave this sort of information.

"Ohhh, picture frames."

"You're taking a whole truckload of picture frames to Colorado?"

"Yup. To Target. You know what I've been thinking about a lot lately?"

"What?"

"Picture frames. You know, I never really stopped to think… about picture frames."

I should point out that he was speaking slowly and putting exaggerated accents on every word that would accept one. That last sentence was really like- "You know, I NEver REAlly, STOpped to think…… about PICture frames."

He continued- "Look up there. Picture frames." He pointed to our three framed leaders- the governor, the lieutenant governor, and the secretary of transportation.

I added, "If there are a hundred million houses in the country and each one has ten picture frames, right there's a billion."

He nodded, "It adds up quick."

Please folks, if you want to check my math, for your sake, do not add. Save yourself some time and multiply.

He continued, "Look up there at that clock. That clock is in a kind of picture frame. Everywhere you look, picture frames. I'm always thinking of how you can use things in different ways. Let me give you two examples of amazing things I've hauled."

Yes!!! Friends, this is exactly the type of conversation I wait for. I can't tell you how hard it is to get people to talk about out-of-the-ordinary experiences they've had. I ask these janitors all the time- "any excitement around here lately?" They categorically respond with how many people came through recently, and how many gallons of water were used- their heads are always in the sewer. If I really press them they'll tell me about having to call the state cops because some trucker took a prostitute into the woods behind the place. Getting into a conversation like that is like pulling teeth from these guys, and they need the last fragments of teeth that they have.

He said, "I hauled 43,000 pounds of clay from Wyoming to the chocolate factory in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Do you know what they used it for?"

"I can't imagine."

He motioned to the vending machines, "They put it in Hershey Bars."

"What? How do you know?"

"They said that's what they did with it, and that was right where I dropped it off."

He asked me," Do you know how bad clay is for you?"

"No."

"It's not bad or you. It's good for you. In Genesis, God said that man is made out of three things- clay, water and do you know the third?"

Carbon? He continued before I could decide whether or not to say it.

"God's breath. That's the most important ingredient. That's the one people always forget."

He pantomimed playing with some play-dough and then breathing into it.

He continued, "We're made out of clay so it's not bad to eat it. I never thought of that before I went to Hershey. Think of it this way, if I make two puddles of oil on the ground and put some clay on one and nothing on the other, do you know what will happen when you come back the next day?"

"What?"

"The clay will soak up the oil. Clay takes all of the bad things out of you. My sister is a pharmacist and she said that some pills are bad for your liver. I'll tell you what to do next time your sick- put a little bit of clay in a cup, add a little water, stir it around, and drink it." He pantomimed all of the movements. "Clay is good for you."

I think I'd like a second opinion.

He went back to the Genesis thing but I reeled him back. I asked, "What was the other amazing thing you hauled?"

"Oh, it was a load of artificial body parts- hearts and lungs and limbs."

Wow.

He continued, "This is another example of how you can use things for other purposes. It's amazing all of the things the lord thought of. Do you know how much you should eat?"

"No," I lied. Eat as much as you think you should.

He held out two fists, "That much." He took one away. "That's how big your heart is. I look at my body and I'm amazed. Look at your knees. They're even, right? Well what if he put one up here and another down here." He pointed to his thigh and calf. "You'd be walking around like this." He started hitching around like the Elephant Man. I should have asked if he thought the Elephant Man was made in God's image.

He continued, "Think how amazing it is that we have blood pressure, and these long veins as long as your leg and we can bend around and nothing happens to them."

"And twist," I offered.

"Right! You twist and they don't break. The lord gave us so much to ponder about. Think about your eyes. I can look at the phone, or I can look out the window at those trees over there," he made a motion like his eyes were sending out rays, "and I can't feel them doing it!"

Imagine if your eyes got progressively hotter as you looked things progressively further away. The first thing you'd teach your kids would be to not look at the stars.

He told me how amazed he was that dogs and mice and rabbits were "all even, half boys and half girls."

"Did you know that when you were born there were seven more girls born for you? Then in ten years there are 14 more, and in 20 years there are 21 more and so on. It adds up fast. That's why there are so many girls."

I'm not sure what he was talking about, but it might have been that the miniscule lead girls have on boys in birthrate (like .001%), means that for me there are 7 extra girls out there… supposedly doubling every ten years for some reason. I like to think they are wondering the countryside, aimless, longing for me.

He continued, "I think that's why you hear girls talking about guy liking sex so much- because there are so many more of them saying it."

I'll give him this- that is certainly a theory, just like evolution and gravity… but probably closer to the geocentric universe theory, or "our leaders look out for our best interest" theory.

Continuing on the sex strand, "I don't care how much you like something, you can not do it 24/7. It doesn't matter what it is, you can not do it 24/7. You'll get tired of it at some point."

He motioned to the floor, "It's like if you love chickens and there were 50 chickens running around here. You couldn't eat them all. It doesn't matter how much you like chickens. There are limits."

I looked at the dingy floor that's mopped about 20 times day with a rotten old mop (a mop that, if granted sentience by a beneficent God, would immediately commit suicide… probably by drowning itself in a toilet) and I imagined the place littered with filthy chickens, squawking and scrambling, and me being forced to eat them one-by-one by an angry God, feathers and all, chicken blood dribbling from my chin. I nearly vomited. He was right- I do not like chickens that much. Not even close.

He told me he was the middle child of thirteen and his dad worked for President Kennedy as an interpreter. "He even wrote two of those… what are those things called the president reads off?"

"Bills?"

"No."

"Speeches?"

"Yeah, he wrote two of those."

That is a really good description of "speeches"- those things the president reads off.

Then back to religion…

"President Kennedy was a Catholic. People don't believe in God much anymore. You know the day after Christmas when they had that tsunami? There's a lot of atheists there, aren't there?"

"No, I don't think so." Unless Muslims are atheists.

"Oh. Well we've been having tsunamis and tornados and earthquakes and hurricanes and all of these terrible things keep happening. Do you think it's because man keeps sinning? By "man" I mean women too. I'm not trying to say that I know what God thinks or that "It's this way because of the Bible" or anything like that. I don't know what's in the bible. It's just one of the things I ponder about. Do you think these rocks in the Earth are moving around," he did a world-class pantomime of plate tectonics, "because God's punishing man for not believing in him anymore?"

He paused. My first legitimate chance to offer an opinion. "I don't think it works that way." I think I failed miserably.

He said, "Well, I'm going to get back on the road. It was good talking to you."

"Yeah, have a good trip."

"You know I will."

Yeah, I know he will. He said he hadn't been home for three months. It's kind of a comforting thought that he's out there somewhere, hauling something new, freshly amazed- wondering without pandering, wandering while pondering.