N. C. Wyeth

Mistrust self-expression. Is simply possessing a self somehow particularly worthy of attention? That’s great for two year olds – it’s a phase we all go through. But Shakespeare wrote what he wrote to fill the stalls at the theater he co-owned. Bach banged out piece after perfect piece because it was his day job. John and Paul sat down to write hit songs, on purpose, to get the hell out of Liverpool. And Lennon’s stuff got flabby and eye-rollingly precious only after he’d made his pile and set out to create Art. I’m gaining new respect for avarice; it’s so uncluttered.

It’s a metaphor, people.

If you’ve ever listened to Woody Guthrie songs or looked at Dorothea Lange pictures, then you’ve heard about the Dust Bowl. What happened was, there was a period of unusually high rainfall over a great big area, and farmers moved in and plowed up the ground and planted wheat and cotton. Then the weather swung back to really dry and the wind came and literally blew those farms away. See, everybody had gotten so used to a mild and fertile climate that they thought of it as the norm. It wasn’t; they’d just been lucky for a generation or two.

This is sad news

Dave Barry said, "If someone is nice to you but rude to the waiter, they are not a nice person." The thing is, you should probably try to avoid being rude to anybody. Because if you think that being the low man gives you permission to be a jerk to somebody, then you’re turning your position into a strength, and so you’re punching down at somebody who can’t hit back without looking like a bully. Like when a four year old socks you in the crotch. It’s disappointing, but it turns out you have to treat everybody right, every day.

As in scope or copter

The word “kebab” comes from an Arabic root meaning to burn or roast. In Turkish, “shish” means skewer. Alrighty. But wait. In Turkey, in the mid-19th century, somebody started rotating a cone of meat on a vertical spit. “Doner kebab” means “turning roast” because the Turkish word for turning is “dönmek.” The Greeks liked this food, but they hated the Turks, so they substituted their own word for turning, “gyro.” Think I’m done? I’m not done. Turkish has another word for turning, “çevirme.” So in Arabic the same food is “shawarma.” And here’s my favorite: In Persian, it’s “kebab torki.”

a cautionary tale

Yesterday afternoon I was working in the shed, doing a little wiring to improve the lighting, and I had this great idea for today’s rant. It was so good. I pretty much wrote the whole thing in my head, basically, and I probably should have written it down right away. But I was up on a ladder and I wanted to get done so I could switch the breaker back on because if it got dark I would not have been able to finish without running an extension cord from the house. “I’ll remember,” I thought. I did not remember.

Should have seen it coming

It can stay warm for so long that you forget winter is sure to show up sooner or later. That first frost arrives and you’re like, oh crap, I gave all my sweaters to Goodwill. Because for some reason you thought the mild weather was permanent. Time to bundle up, buddy. Clean your flues, dig out the quilts, stock your pantry. Of course, if you see somebody out in the cold, you have to bring them into the warm. Beyond that, pretty much all you can do is throw another book on the fire and hope for an early spring.

Had enough of your lip.

The House of Hapsburg ruled most of Europe for about 300 years. They acquired power through marriage, and they kept it by only mating within the extended family. Three centuries is a lot of generations; they got to where they actually shared more DNA than most siblings. The last of the Spanish Hapsburg rulers, Charles II, was his dad's great nephew and his mom's first cousin. He couldn’t feed himself or keep himself clean. He died at 38, and the autopsy stated that he "..had a single testicle, black as coal, and his head was full of water." Just sayin’.