Ethereality, and Other Miscellany

Gretel woke me up in the middle of the night last night, said she had a bad dream. I asked her what it was about. Her answer surprised me- "The baby was playing with my toys." I don't know if that was worth waking me up.

June 7, 2016

...

Trouble brewing. Eric Trump calls critics of his dad, "not even people." Without hyperbole, that is the exact thinking that leads to genocide... paint your enemies as subhuman, and you can do whatever conscience-free. Be watchful, it's a baby step, but critical journalist could be jailed, and then who knows. And remember that Trump praises strong-armed rulers.

June 7, 2017

...

Federer vs Nadal in the French Open semi-final... they keep breaking back and forth, gusts of wind expected up to 40 or 50 miles per hour.

June 7, 2019

...

On this day in 1892, Homer Plessy was arrested for refusing to leave his seat in the "whites-only" car of a train; he lost the resulting court case, Plessy v. Ferguson.

...

On this day in 1917 was the World War I Battle of Messines. Allied soldiers detonated a series of mines underneath German trenches at Messines Ridge, killing 10,000 German troops. That is going to give me nightmares.

...

On this day in 1965, the Supreme Court of the United States decriminalized... wait for it... Contraception for married couples, in Griswold v. Connecticut. This is not that long ago! When people are worked up about abortion, I wonder why they're not worked up about the infinite other babies who never came to be. I think in this case, Connecticut was worked up over those infinite babies.

...

Hitler was born on this day in 1837. Alois Hitler, Regular Hitler's father.

...

Thurman Munson became the Yankees captain in 1976, their first captain since Lou Gehrig in the 30's. He had this to say about it:

"Maybe they made me captain because I’ve been here so long, but if I’m supposed to lead by example, then I’ll be a terrible captain."

I love that. He was born on this day in 1947.

...

Mike Pence, 48th Vice President of the United States, was born on this day in 1959, on Prince's first birthday. Dare I call him an American hero? Yes. I disagree with him ideologically on almost every point but he single-handedly saved the country from a dictator, and that's true about how many people?

...

Dave Filoni joined us on this day in 1974. What would the Mandalorian be without him?

...

Chief Seattle left us on this day in 1866.

"My people are few. They resemble the scattering trees of a storm-swept plain...There was a time when our people covered the land as the waves of a wind-ruffled sea cover its shell-paved floor, but that time long since passed away with the greatness of tribes that are now but a mournful memory."

...

Jean Harlow left us on this day in 1937. I think she was human but this picture could be proved to the contrary. The definition of ethereal.

I love the contrast between Leadbelly's song and the Jean Harlow images. Someone could write a book about it.

https://youtu.be/OufFJiFgYrI

...

On this day in 1977, Star Wars and Kenner teamed up to make the greatest toys in the history of toydom.

...

English mathematician and computer pioneer, Alan Turing, left us on this day in 1954. His death was ruled a suicide, from eating an Apple laced with cyanide. Take a guess what his favorite fairy tale was. Yes, Snow White and the Seven dwarfs. But he was also known to eat an apple before bed and leave it half eaten. And he didn't store chemicals properly, and it could have been an accidental inhalation of cyanide. He was chemically castrated because homosexuality was illegal in England at the time. Can you believe that? So recent. Somehow, apparently, he was in good spirits about it. This close to him don't believe it was a suicide. Yet there's the story about the fortune teller told by the daughter of a family he went on a day trip with:

But it was a lovely sunny day and Alan was in a cheerful mood and off we went... Then he thought it would be a good idea to go to the Pleasure Beach at Blackpool. We found a fortune-teller's tent[,] and Alan said he'd like to go in[,] so we waited around for him to come back... And this sunny, cheerful visage had shrunk into a pale, shaking, horror-stricken face. Something had happened. We don't know what the fortune-teller said[,] but he obviously was deeply unhappy. I think that was probably the last time we saw him before we heard of his suicide.

...

Novelist and short story writer, E. M. Forster, left us on this day in 1970. 

"How do I know what I think until I see what I say?"

Apparently that was something he thought.

...

One of the best ever, Henry Miller, left us on this day in 1980. I heard that he knew several times as many words as Shakespeare. I used to read his books and underline every word I had to look up. It took twice as long to read them. From On Turning 80:

"If at eighty you’re not a cripple or an invalid, if you have your health, if you still enjoy a good walk, a good meal (with all the trimmings), if you can sleep without first taking a pill, if birds and flowers, mountains and sea still inspire you, you are a most fortunate individual and you should get down on your knees morning and night and thank the good Lord for his savin’ and keepin’ power. If you are young in years but already weary in spirit, already on the way to becoming an automaton, it may do you good to say to your boss — under your breath, of course — “Fuck you, Jack! You don’t own me!” … If you can fall in love again and again, if you can forgive your parents for the crime of bringing you into the world, if you are content to get nowhere, just take each day as it comes, if you can forgive as well as forget, if you can keep from growing sour, surly, bitter and cynical, man you’ve got it half licked."

Then later:

"I have very few friends or acquaintances my own age or near it. Though I am usually ill at ease in the company of elderly people I have the greatest respect and admiration for two very old men who seem to remain eternally young and creative. I mean [the Catalan cellist and conductor] Pablo Casals and Pablo Picasso, both over ninety now. Such youthful nonagenarians put the young to shame. Those who are truly decrepit, living corpses, so to speak, are the middle-aged, middleclass men and women who are stuck in their comfortable grooves and imagine that the status quo will last forever or else are so frightened it won’t that they have retreated into their mental bomb shelters to wait it out."

Damn, that sounds wonderful. Wonderful? What kind of a word is that??? It sounds sublime!

...

Ferdinand Waldo Demara Jr., The Great Imposter, left us on this day in 1982.

His impersonations included a civil engineer, a sheriff's deputy, an assistant prison warden, a doctor of applied psychology, a hospital orderly, a lawyer, a child-care expert, a Benedictine monk, a Trappist monk, a naval surgeon, an editor, a cancer researcher, and a teacher. He had a photographic memory and could pick up the basics of any job.

His take on his own motivation- "Rascality, pure rascality."

...

Richard Ramirez died. I swear I saw him hitchhiking a couple years ago while driving with Sloth. I said "That was the Night Stalker!" "Who?" "Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker!" He didn't know who I was talking about. I showed him a pic when we got back to the warehouse. He agreed, it was him. (Like the Devil can't bust himself out of prison every once in a while and go hitchhiking.)

June 7, 2013

...

Texas rep Louie Gohmert, on cooperation with the January 6 investigation into the attempted overthrow of the government.

“It actually puts an exclamation point on the fact that we have a two-tired justice system. If you’re a Republican, you can’t even lie to Congress or lie to an FBI agent or they’re coming after you."

Where's his free speech???

June 7, 2022

...

Someone was on Fox News making a lot of sense on guns.

"There is a difference between gun control and gun responsibility. The first is a mandate that can infringe on our right; the second is a duty that will preserve it. There is no constitutional barrier to gun responsibility."

Wait... Matthew McConaughey??? 

This is what the Democrats suck at- messaging. Seriously, what is their problem? They can't hire an ad agency? They can all adopt the same message?

Our cigarettes don't cause cancer... they are "toasted."

If ad agencies can spin cancer from cigarettes, they can make responsibility on 40,000 gun deaths per year some important. It's kind of the opposite thing.

June 7, 2022

...

Dalai Lama- "I mean, if a female Dalai Lama comes, she must be very attractive. Otherwise, what's the point?"

Now I think he was kidding. But maybe not!

Contrast that with this quote:

"Some people, sweet and attractive, strong and healthy, happen to die young. They are masters in disguise teaching us about impermanence."

Attractiveness itself can teach a lesson about impermanence.

...

The Atlantic- The Rest of the World Is Laughing At Trump

Anne Applebaum is an excellent conservative writer. She raises an important question- are we a serious nation? Two noteworthy paragraphs:

"But the kind of coverage we see now is something new. This time, people are not attacking the president of the United States. They are laughing at him. Beppe Severgnini, one of Italy’s best-known columnists, told me that while Italians feel enormous empathy for Americans who have suffered as they have, they feel differently about Trump: “In this time of darkness and depression, he keeps us entertained.”"

"And if Trump wins a second term? Any nation can make a mistake once, elect a bad leader once. But if Americans choose Trump again, that will send a clear message: We are no longer a serious nation. We are as ignorant as our thoughtless, narcissistic, ignorant president. Don’t be surprised if the rest of the world takes note of that, too."

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/time-americans-are-doing-nothing/611056/

June 7, 2020

...

Notable birthdays- Paul Gauguin (1848), Jessica Tandy (1909), Dean Martin (1917), Bill Hader (1978) 

...

16 Cognitive Distortions, Positive Psychology, by Courtney Ackerman

16. Heaven’s Reward Fallacy

This distortion is a popular one, and it’s easy to see myriad examples of this fallacy playing out on big and small screens across the world. The “Heaven’s Reward Fallacy” manifests as a belief that one’s struggles, one’s suffering, and one’s hard work will result in a just reward.

It is obvious why this type of thinking is a distortion – how many examples can you think of, just within the realm of your personal acquaintances, where hard work and sacrifice did not pay off?

Sometimes no matter how hard we work or how much we sacrifice, we will not achieve what we hope to achieve. To think otherwise is a potentially damaging pattern of thought that can result in disappointment, frustration, anger, and even depression when the awaited reward does not materialize.

...

Wheel of Fortune Vine:

https://youtube.com/shorts/LHrCihNymuo

...

Every once in a while I wait to remind myself that John Steinbeck lost his manuscript of The Red Pony, and we wrote it from memory. Years later the original was found and only seven words differed. 

...

Christopher Hitchens documentary:

http://vimeo.com/94776807

...

I love these polls... 34% approve of the president, and 29% believe the president is not level-headed, so 5% (or 1 in 20) therefore agree with the statement, "I support the president although he is not level-headed." Are these people level-headed?

http://politi.co/2rBHOSf

June 7, 2017

...

...

Jung- "Whenever we give up, leave behind, and forget too much, there is always the danger that the things we have neglected will return with added force."

Jung was Joseph Campbell's inspiration, and Campbell was George Lucas's inspiration. What he's saying here sounds like the sand people getting scared off, but then returning in greater numbers.

...

Dylan:

Old lady judges watch people in pairs

Limited in sex, they dare

To push fake morals, insult and stare

While money doesn’t talk, it swears

Obscenity, who really cares

Propaganda, all is phony

...

Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451- "With school turning out more runners, jumpers, racers, tinkerers, grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers instead of examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators, the word 'intellectual,' of course, became the swear word it deserved to be."

...

Larry McMurtry, The Last Picture Show- "You have to remember that I've been lonely for a long time. Loneliness is like ice. After you've been lonely long enough you don't realize you're cold, but you are... I don't know, maybe at the center of me there's some ice that never will melt, maybe it's just been there too long. But you mustn't worry. You didn't put it there."

...

Albert Einstein- "It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."

...

Antisthenes- "There are only two people who can tell you the truth about yourself - an enemy who has lost his temper and a friend who loves you dearly."

...

Chief Seattle again: "Teach your children what we have taught our children, that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves. This we know: the earth does not belong to man - man belongs to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood that unites one's family. All things are connected."

He's nearly paraphrasing George Carlin. "The Earth is fine, the people are fucked."