Lives of the Philosophers, Pt. 10

Leszek Kołakowski lived from 1927 until 2009, so in a sense he is the least dead of any of the philosophers we have heretofore highlighted. This guy is brilliant; I’m watching as he apparently without effort dispenses with the life’s work of one after another of the giants of Western thought. Under his close scrutiny the entire endeavor seems to fragment into a tangle of mutually exclusive absurdities. So, thanks. I had thought that at least I could claim to know nothing, but now I’m not so sure. Life is pretty okay if you don’t think about it too much.

Unforgettable. That’s what you are.

Don’t you hate it when a non-profit solicits you in the mail and they give you some crap gift right up front in an attempt to guilt-trip you into making a donation? (Dear Doctors Without Borders: I send you money to provide medical care to needy people and you spend it on these low-quality tote bags. Stop doing that.) The Alzheimer’s Association just did that to me. They sent a bunch of those return address stickers because we all send so many letters these days. But that’s not the best part. They also enclosed (wait for it…) a memo pad.

Again with the shame

Last week I apologized for neglecting to inform my readers of an important national holiday and surmised that perhaps as a part of the celebrations there would be posed scenes with static costumed performers reproducing important events from our shared history. This is called “tableau vivant” in the French language and I notice now that I used an incorrect plural. It should be “tableaux vivants.” I sincerely hope that you can forgive me for any distress my error has caused. Also, it should be noted that both final consonants are silent and the plural is pronounced exactly like the singular.

U.S. Patent 19,783

I’m sorry. I feel that I’ve let you down. National Pencil Day was last Thursday and I’m only telling you now, when it’s too late to join any of the pencil-themed festivities which doubtless proliferated all around this great nation of ours. I envision crowds of school children lifting their shining faces to a cloudless blue sky, each waving a bright yellow Dixon Ticonderoga in time with the splendid brass band playing a rousing march. Possibly the presentation of tableau vivants depicting such milestones as Hymen Lipman’s 1858 patent of the attached eraser. I wouldn’t know. I missed it too.

to be clear

There once was a time when people who wanted to denigrate Chicago as a gray depressing rustbelt shithole would characterize it as “two Clevelands,” which I’m here to say is no longer true. Based on the latest census figures, Chicago today is closer to seven Clevelands.  I refer to Cleveland, Ohio, my home town; our nation is rich in Clevelands. North Carolina has two. Not to be outdone, Wisconsin boasts five places called Cleveland, with an aggregate population of 4,727, thereby outnumbering Cleveland, Georgia, home to 3,511 people, which is, to be clear, larger than any single Cleveland, Wisconsin, alone.

non trivial

Here’s a rule of thumb: Try to worry only about unimportant things like the designated hitter rule or pre-torn jeans or pre-made pancakes in the freezer section (seriously? have we come to this?) or why is this package of X-acto blades impossible to open without an X-acto blade? The really important issues are those where you have to just bear down and do your best, but not worry. You ought to divert your entire capacity for worry into the most trivial of concerns. I think it’s best to sweat the small stuff, because the big stuff will break your heart.

it's not a sonata

I guess the easiest way to start writing anything is to begin without a plan. That eliminates a lot of that time-consuming thinking and lets you get right to the important task, which is putting down one word after the other. Of course, about halfway through you have to start asking yourself, “How am I going to finish this?” And that’s where a rookie can find themselves blocked or stumped or flummoxed. Here’s a pro tip for the lazy: Symmetry is your go-to form for bringing any sort of creative work to a close. That’s the easiest way, I guess.