Hey all ( Read more... )

I always wondered whether irony/sarcasm would get its own commonly recognized textual denotation. And lo...!

From Wikipedia-

In the UK, television and DVD subtitles for those with impaired hearing have adopted the use of (!) (an exclamation mark in parentheses) following speech in which sarcasm or irony is perceptible via the tone of voice.

Is science of any value?

I think a power to do something is of value. Whether the result is a good thing or a bad thing depends on how it is used, but the power is a value.

Once in Hawaii I was taken to see a Buddhist temple. In the temple a man said, "I am going to tell you something that you will never forget." And then he said, "To every man is ( Read more... )

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Matt Groening is the cat's pajamas. Additionally, he has impeccable taste.

( Behold the glory of Mr. Groening's choices...! )

The Stoics put it this way:

Admire only those things with which you can reward yourself; abhor only those things you have it in your power to avoid.

"I know the wicked flourish and all that; what kills me is the really crummy grade of wicked who flourish around here."

-Edwin O'Connor, All in the Family (1966)

For the last 5 years of my life, I've listened to "contemporary" classical music - music written since 1930 or so. I still do. It's marvelous and cunning.

In so doing, I closed myself off from Bach and Handel and basically everyone who preceded Wagner. I think my logic went something like this:

"Bach was a slave to theory and form. Contemporary ( Read more... )

September, this is when the year begins. So say we Jews, and so say we theatricals and schoolchildren.

The year begins when it turns cold. This is the start of intellectual activity.

The day, as in the Bible, begins at dusk -- it begins not with birth, in the spring, but with conception. In the autumn. The leaves fall from the trees, expelled by ( Read more... )

End-of-Year Reflections

by Ted Kooser, Poet Laureate of the United States

december 30

Two degrees and clear.

A box of holiday pears came yesterday,
twenty tough little pears, all red and green,
neatly nested in cardboard cubicles,
their stems all pointed the same direction
like soldiers, a shine on their faces.
Five, all in a row, had been singled ( Read more... )