Posted on by rjonakait

Snippets

I often think that I get those quotidian 50/50 choices wrong more than half the time. When I try to insert the USB cable, or the polarized plug, or pull on the up/down shade cord, push or pull the door, or similar everyday tasks, I seem to get it wrong far more often than I get it right. I keep meaning to keep track for a week to see if my perception is correct, but I have so far failed to perform this crucial experiment.

“I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” Picasso.

There is much talk that Trump is destroying democracy, but as pointed out in Myth America: Historians Take On the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past. (2022) by Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer,“Majoritarian democracy may not sound like something so unusual for an American president to embrace, but the conservative movement had treated it with suspicion for decades.” In the 1960s, conservatives said again and again that United States is a republic, not a democracy. However, Akhil Reed Amar in his essay “Founding Myths” in Kruse and Zelizer’s book maintains that at this country’s founding many Americans treated “republic” and “democracy” as broadly the same.

Often when Trump starts rambling, I think of the statement by Fran Lebowitz: “Generally speaking, it is inhumane to detain a fleeting insight.”

“Neurosis seems to be a human privilege.” Freud.

I am now so old that I regularly watch “Wheel of Fortune” and some non-sports shows on CBS.

A wise person said: “Alas! It is man’s fate to keep on growing older long after he is old enough.”

“Life should consist in at least fifty per cent pure waste of time, and the rest in doing what you please.” Isabel Patterson.

“It is not true that life is one damn thing after another—it’s one damn thing over and over.” Edna St Vincent Millay.

“The biggest problem people have is leisure. Anybody can handle a jam-packed day.” Peg Bracken.

I have finally learned that a good listener is generally thinking about something else.

I have also learned that bores are people who would rather talk about themselves when I’d much rather talk about me.

I believe in being a gentleman if Oliver Herford is right when he said, “A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone’s feelings unintentionally.”

I believe in being on time. However: “The trouble with being punctual is that there’s nobody there to appreciate it.” Harold Rome.

I believe in love. “Love is a wonderful thing and highly desirable in marriage.” Rupert Hughes.

However: “I think unconditional love is what a mother feels for her baby, and not what you should feel for yourself.” Helen Gurley Brown.

“Life is a flame that is always burning itself out, but it catches fire again every time a child is born.” George Bernard Shaw.

Posted on by rjonakait

Snippets

I stopped at the roadside popup market to buy some vegan chili. It comes frozen. I like it, and I like having it in the freezer for a quick dinner when I don’t have the inclination to do my own cooking. I bought four. They are $8 a piece. Should I have been appalled or surprised when the guy who served me got a calculator to decide what I owed?

“In real life, I assure you, there is no such thing as algebra.” Fran Lebowitz.

We are considering selling our house and moving into a condo, but not surprisingly, the ones that seem desirable always cost a little more than we can afford. I am reminded of the wise words: “Thrift is a wonderful virtue—especially in an ancestor.”

The 120-year-old house in the country often needs work, but I have learned that at this time of year, I have to be tolerant of our workmen. They do a good job, but right now they can be hard to get. It is hunting season, or should I say seasons. There is regular deer season, bow-and-arrow deer season, black powder deer season, turkey season, duck season, goose season, bear season. . . . And on the first days of these seasons, as with first day of the trout season in the spring, the workmen are out hunting, or fishing, not working at my house. But a remember what I heard years ago, “If God didn’t want man to hunt, he wouldn’t have given us plaid flannel shirts.”

Did I miss them? I have not heard those who rightfully complain about America’s mass incarceration and long prison sentences deriding the twenty-two-year sentence given the Proud Boys leader.

A wise person said: “An excellent time to win freedom by means of good behavior is before you go to jail.”

I don’t know of any legislative accomplishments of Jim Jordan, Congressman from Ohio and Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, even though legislative accomplishments are supposed to be the reason why people go to Congress in the first place. Instead, Jordan, who as Lillian Hellman said about Norma Shearer, has “a face unclouded by thought,” seeks to block or discredit criminal and other investigations into Donald Trump’s activities. The FBI, the Justice Department, state law enforcement officials are partisan hacks, at least when they do things Jordan does not like. In The Devil & Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession David Grann describes another Ohio Congressman a generation ago who, from the floor of the House where his statements could not be used in a defamation trial, said, “Mr. Speaker, I have evidence that certain F.B.I. agents in Youngstown, Ohio, have violated the RICO statute and stole large sums of cash.” The speaker was James Traficant who was later convicted of ten felony counts, including racketeering and taking bribes. Also what comes to mind are the words of the FBI agent in charge of the Traficant investigation: “Every time we charge another public official, the media presents it as another black eye for the community. I’d prefer if they portray it to the community as another step in cleansing ourselves.” The agent concluded, “As long as they choose to put people in office who are corrupt, nothing will ever change.”

“Man is the only animal that laughs. He is the only animal that has a House of Representatives.”

Posted on by rjonakait

Snippets

          I went to a theater production of “Paradise Lost,” based, it claimed, on the words of John Milton. I did not think much of the play’s quality, but the group putting on the play was a Christian group. On some level they succeeded with me. Eve was not initially naked as Biblical authenticity should have required but was clothed in a filmy fabric that moved and flowed and shaped over her body. She was lovely, and well before that consequential bite of the forbidden apple, all was foreshadowed because I was thinking about ripe, luscious fruit.

          Whenever the president speaks, I keep hoping in vain for more splendid flashes of silence.

          “Silence is the unbearable repartee.” G.K. Chesterton.

          At Madison Square Garden, Hammer of the Harlem Globetrotters got us in the audience to do a wave, then a reverse wave, and finally a slow motion wave. Even though this is all a hokey cliché, I hope you, like me, can still find pleasure in the wave.

          It’s such a surprise to hear people discussing cheating in American professional sports and find out that they are not talking about Boston.

          When I looked over to see who had sat next to me at the bar, I was surprised because he seemed close to my age, and few of the patrons of this place can remember Eisenhower, much less Truman, as president. He nursed his beer and was quiet for a few moments before he pointed to the book I had placed on the counter and asked what I was reading. It was clear that he was not really interested in that but that he wanted to talk. (Note. I did not say that he wanted to converse.)

          He told me that he was a retired real estate attorney from Atlanta and had been in a big firm. He was now living in Portland, Oregon, which he and his wife had picked after exploratory vacations.

          He was in Brooklyn to visit his son, who was a freelance cinematographer after graduating from Boston College. He has given his son, he told me more than once, advice about things the son should do to be a successful freelancer. I wondered what this big-firm real estate lawyer knew about either freelancing or cinematography.

          He was not staying with his son who lived in Bed-Stuy but at a downtown Brooklyn hotel. He said, “His apartment is even too squalid for me.” I wondered what he knew of squalid.

          I said that I was leaving soon. He was quick to tell me that he was meeting his son at the bar in a few minutes and said that I would enjoy meeting him. And then he said it again. I wondered if he was uncomfortable meeting his offspring. After a few more minutes, he looked at his phone and said that his son was not coming. He left three minutes later. And I wondered whether this was as sad as it seemed.

          “The opposite of talking isn’t listening. The opposite of talking is waiting.” Fran Lebowitz.