Normal People, and Extraordinary People

Graffiti outside the wall of an ancient Pompeii brothel:

"Weep, you girls. My penis has given you up. Now it penetrates men's behinds. Goodbye, wondrous femininity!"

Here's another:

"Amplicatus, I know that Icarus is buggering you. Salvius wrote this."

Then there was some ancient asshole named Florinous who wrote this obnoxious blather:

"Floronius, privileged soldier of the 7th legion, was here. The women did not know of his presence. Only six women came to know, too few for such a stallion."

He's been dead for 2,000 years, but unfortunately his spirit does live on.

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Aldous Huxley- "If most of us remain ignorant of ourselves, it is because self-knowledge is painful and we prefer the pleasures of illusion."

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The Ultimate Warrior- NORMAL PEOPLE, PEOPLE THAT WALK THE STREETS EVERY DAY, WE CANNOT UNDERSTAND!

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George Carlin:

The reason education sucks and will never, ever, ever be fixed is... because the owners of this country don't want that... I'm talking about the real owners, the big, wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you.

They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate and Congress, the statehouse, the city halls. They have the judges in their back pockets. They own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear...

We know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else. I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking - well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking... That doesn't help them. That's against their interest... They want obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork and just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly sh*ttier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime, and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And now, they're coming for your Social Security money... They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and you know something, they'll get it... It's a big club, and you ain't in it. You and I ain't in the big club...

They don't care about you at all, and nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care. That's what the owners count on... It's called the "American Dream," because you have to be asleep to believe it.

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I keep thinking of Trump's self-professed number one reason that he didn't rape that woman... not his type. Only a psychopath could think of such a thing.

June 25, 2019

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That Twin Peaks episode was from another planet. If humankind exists in a thousand years they might still talk about it. Fastest hour of my life, and somehow the slowest. Did David Lynch just trick me into an hour of transcendetal meditation? I might need to watch that again right now.

It was as if he was creating a new religion before my eyes.

It's like 2001 meets Dr. Strangelove plus The Shining, all with the backdrop of an anti-hero losing his life and being reborn... Clockwork Orange?

How about this Wikipedia synopsis: "In a standoff, Ray shoots Cooper's doppelgänger. Woodsmen tear at his body, revealing an orb with BOB's face. Ray flees and informs Jeffries that the doppelgänger may have survived. The doppelgänger awakens. In 1945 New Mexico, the first atomic bomb is detonated. Woodsmen occupy a convenience store and the Experiment spews smoke containing an orb bearing BOB's face. In the building above the purple sea, the Fireman observes these events and levitates, emanating a golden mist and an orb containing Laura Palmer's face. His companion, Señorita Dido, sends the orb to Earth. In 1956 New Mexico, a woodsman descends to the ground, enters a radio station and repeatedly broadcasts a mysterious message, rendering listeners unconscious. A bug/frog-like creature hatches from an egg, enters an unconscious girl's room and climbs down her throat."

What a knockout.

June 25, 2017

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How far away from the Milky Way are we? That question took a certain birthday girl exactly one second too long to figure out.

June 25, 2017

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If it's as far away from Christmas as possible, that means it's Emma Eck's birthday. She's the one who makes me (public compliment pre-emptively deleted by wish of the recipient), and she is (public compliment pre-emptively deleted by wish of the recipient), and I'm very happy to (public compliment pre-emptively deleted by wish of the recipient). And she made a beautiful baby.

June 25, 2014

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Simplify your life, by buying a block of wood that says "simplify" on it.

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The third egg I tried to crack in the pan was hard-boiled. It has my vote for the Pullet Surprise.

June 25, 2011

Postscript- I stand by that joke.

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I invented a new ice cream recipe, the ingredients are Fruity Pebbles and half and half. I call the concoction "Kreider's Folly."

June 25, 2011

Postscript- Amazingly, I was at Amelia's today, June 25, 2022 and they had... Fruity Pebbles ice cream! I didn't buy it. It was 99 cents. Kreider's Folly II.

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Did I really think I could fix my refrigerator??? At the end of the debacle I was reminded of the first sentence of Bukowski's Post Office- "It began as a mistake."

June 25, 2010

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On this day in 1876, Custer was killed at the Battle of Little Bighorn, a bright spot in the recent history of the Lakota Sioux.

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The Diary of Anne Frank was published on this day in 1947. But you know what wasn't published? The passages she wrote with dirty jokes. 

“A man had a very ugly wife and he didn’t want to have relations with her. One evening he came home and then he saw his friend in bed with his wife, then the man said: ‘He gets to and I have to!!!’”

Something just occurred to me. Her actual diary exists somewhere. Is it possible to see it? It's like a holy relic. I have goosebumps thinking that it actually exists, that I'm currently sharing the Earth with it.

The Anne Frank house said that the passages highlight “Anne the girl,” and her inquisitive and precocious personality.

“Do you know why the German Wehrmacht girls are in Holland? As mattresses for the soldiers.”

You said it Anne!

She also has a section in it saying that her dad went to a whorehouse in Paris. There was some paper glued over it. Do you know who had her diary published? Her dad. 

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The rainbow flag representing gay pride was flown for the first time on this day in 1978, during the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade.

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Swiss mathematician, Eva Bayer-Fluckiger, was born on this day in 1951. I checked and double checked. That last name is clean, you can mention her during prime-time.

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Anthony Bourdain joined us on this day in 1956. His early 70s idols, were as he says "predictably"- Hunter Thompson, William Burroughs Iggy Pop, Bruce Lee. He does somehow seem like a combo of all of them!

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Ricky Gervais was born on this day in 1961. I quote him all the time, but the hardest I've ever laughed at him was not even at one of his jokes, but a sight gag- when he was dressed up as that chicken after getting fired. That might be the hardest I've ever laughed. I remember just screaming with laughter for like 10 or 15 minutes. That's a good memory.

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Charles Starkweather died on this day in 1959. He went on a killing spree with his girlfriend across the midwest. He also happened to be obsessed with James Dean. He was the model for Martin Sheen in Badlands. 

"The more I looked at people, the more I hated them."

We're better off without the psychopaths, of course.

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French philosopher Michel Foucault died on this day in 1984. He saw all relations in the world as differences in power dynamics. He's something of a patron saint of victimhood and oppressorhood among many of the left. My God though, some of the ways he used his own power... look it up.

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Speaking of 1984, today is Orwell's birthday, born in 1903. He went to Spain to fight the fascists, but when he saw an enemy soldier with his pants falling down he couldn't shoot him- he recognized him as just another human being.

He was shot in the neck during the Spanish civil war. His friends and family came to visit him in the hospital, all saying how lucky he was that it missed his carotid artery, that it missed his spinal cord, that it missed his larynx, and that it only grazed a vocal cord. His response was that if he was lucky, he wouldn't have been shot at all.

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Icons Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett, each left us on this day in 2009.

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Other notable birthdays- Sidney Lumet (1924), Peyo (1928), Eric Carle (1929), Jimmie Walker (1947), Linda Cardellini (1975), Busy Philipps (1979)

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Another notable deathday- Jacques Cousteau (1997)

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The Taoist monk Wang Yuanlu discovered a cache of ancient texts, The Dunhuang Manuscripts, on this day in 1900, in the Mogao Caves of Dunhuang, China.

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New York Times, June 23, 2021- Michigan Republicans Debunk Voter Fraud Claims in Unsparing Report

No fraud? Nonsense! Michigan Republicans proved that Trump and Giuliani tried to steal the election.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/23/us/politics/michigan-2020-election.html

June 25, 2021

Postscript: Well no shit!

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Steven Yeun and Conan Visit a Korean Spa

One of the funniest things I've ever seen!

"You can't hurt me now, Mr. Lee, I've lost all feeling! Shut the fuck up, Steven! I'll tell you anything. Our battalion is in the mountains. On the north side. You'll never see it coming, Mr. Lee! What are you doing? Don't... NO! Oh my God! You took the skin off my balls!"

https://youtu.be/k70xBg8en-4

June 25, 2021

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Jung- "No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell."

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Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary- "Religion, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable."

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Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children- "Perhaps, if one wishes to remain an individual in the midst of the teeming multitudes, one must make oneself grotesque."

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Albert Einstein- "Those who have the privilege to know have the duty to act."

Addendum:

Part 1

Orwell's 11 Rules for Making Tea:

First of all, one should use Indian or Ceylonese tea. China tea has virtues which are not to be despised nowadays — it is economical, and one can drink it without milk — but there is not much stimulation in it. One does not feel wiser, braver or more optimistic after drinking it. Anyone who has used that comforting phrase ‘a nice cup of tea’ invariably means Indian tea.

Secondly, tea should be made in small quantities — that is, in a teapot. Tea out of an urn is always tasteless, while army tea, made in a cauldron, tastes of grease and whitewash. The teapot should be made of china or earthenware. Silver or Britannia ware teapots produce inferior tea and enamel pots are worse; though curiously enough a pewter teapot (a rarity nowadays) is not so bad.

Thirdly, the pot should be warmed beforehand. This is better done by placing it on the hob than by the usual method of swilling it out with hot water.

Fourthly, the tea should be strong. For a pot holding a quart, if you are going to fill it nearly to the brim, six heaped teaspoons would be about right. In a time of rationing, this is not an idea that can be realized on every day of the week, but I maintain that one strong cup of tea is better than twenty weak ones. All true tea lovers not only like their tea strong, but like it a little stronger with each year that passes — a fact which is recognized in the extra ration issued to old-age pensioners.

Fifthly, the tea should be put straight into the pot. No strainers, muslin bags or other devices to imprison the tea. In some countries teapots are fitted with little dangling baskets under the spout to catch the stray leaves, which are supposed to be harmful. Actually one can swallow tea-leaves in considerable quantities without ill effect, and if the tea is not loose in the pot it never infuses properly.

Sixthly, one should take the teapot to the kettle and not the other way about. The water should be actually boiling at the moment of impact, which means that one should keep it on the flame while one pours. Some people add that one should only use water that has been freshly brought to the boil, but I have never noticed that it makes any difference.

Seventhly, after making the tea, one should stir it, or better, give the pot a good shake, afterwards allowing the leaves to settle.

Eighthly, one should drink out of a good breakfast cup — that is, the cylindrical type of cup, not the flat, shallow type. The breakfast cup holds more, and with the other kind one’s tea is always half cold before one has well started on it.

Ninthly, one should pour the cream off the milk before using it for tea. Milk that is too creamy always gives tea a sickly taste.

Tenthly, one should pour tea into the cup first. This is one of the most controversial points of all; indeed in every family in Britain there are probably two schools of thought on the subject. The milk-first school can bring forward some fairly strong arguments, but I maintain that my own argument is unanswerable. This is that, by putting the tea in first and stirring as one pours, one can exactly regulate the amount of milk whereas one is liable to put in too much milk if one does it the other way round.

Lastly, tea — unless one is drinking it in the Russian style — should be drunk without sugar. I know very well that I am in a minority here. But still, how can you call yourself a true tea-lover if you destroy the flavour of your tea by putting sugar in it? It would be equally reasonable to put in pepper or salt. Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter. If you sweeten it, you are no longer tasting the tea, you are merely tasting the sugar; you could make a very similar drink by dissolving sugar in plain hot water.

Part 2

No Lynch film is complete without an ominous close- up of a mysterious numbered door, and other specific architectural forms, brimming with intensity, recur throughout his work: corridors, staircases, rhythmic machinery and red curtains. His camera frequently pauses on vacant spaces, encouraging us to comprehend their meaning. Elsewhere, it leads us disturbingly around corners. Occasionally, we are thrust, without warning, into dark openings. On entering a room, the layout can feel Lynchian at once: the walls faded, the furniture too perfectly arranged, the entire atmosphere askew. Our experience of the space may be radically changed by a shift in lighting or sound. The materials of this universe are vital, too. Velvet drapes, spinning vinyl, lush lawns and firing matches are instilled with cosmic implications. His architecture is tactile and sensuous, filled with textures and a striking attention to surfaces. While watching Lynch’s films, spatial awareness is both demanded and undermined. His worlds combine murky geography with absolute precision. Lynch’s films are littered with sign- posts, informing the audience we have entered Big Tuna, Texas or are traveling along Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. Characters, very deliberately, intone addresses and street names as if they hold magical significance. We are repeatedly told exactly where we are. Equally, we often feel without any bearings at all. This, perhaps, is what it means to map a lost highway.

(THE ARCHITECTURE OF DAVID LYNCH, Richard Martin, 2014)