March 11th, 2010
If you are good-looking and the world agreees that you are good-looking, drinking doesn't make you think you're even better looking. Drinking only makes you feel you're better-looking if you think you're good-looking and the world doesn't agree.
Malcom Gladwell
Classifieds
For sale: fifteen and a half small wooden carvings of the number fifteen and a half. From the period of my obsession with the number fifteen and a half which I am now totally over. Fifteen and a half dollars each. Box 15 1/2.
Will trade my ichneumon for an official snake-charmer's flute. Box 309.
April 1st marks the return of Storytime with Uncle Glennie The avuncular lector will be reading from a selection of stories and milk and cookies will be served. The Project Room, aceartinc 2nd floor, 290 McDermot Avenue, Winnipeg. Doors open at 7:00PM. Stories at 8:00 and 9:00.
The Mystery of the Lost Lenore
Listen to Part Forty-Seven
Click on the picture. (3:23)
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The Real You
If you want reliable information about someone don't ask them. People have no idea who they really are. In most cases this is probably a very good thing. A state of continuous and profound self-delusion is necessary to an equanimous existence in polite (hah!) society.
Just think of the majority of your friends. Is it not painfully obvious to you that they are continually lying tothemselves about who they are? Are they not sadly mistaken about their supposed talents, skills, character et cetera? Are they not overestimating their intelligence and fooling themselves about the health of their relationships? Guess what buddy? They are not alone. You are right in there with the most pie-eyed of them.
In fact, no human being currently existing on the planet (including the Dalai Lama and Tom Cruise) or who has ever existed on this fabulous orb (including Saint Augustine AND George Orwell) has a realistic picture of themselves housed in their cranium. As a species we are incapable of it. It is as anathema to us as non-powered flight and the digestion of cellulose.
Take a good long look in the mirror (it is preferable to do this naked under a fluorescent light). See that person? That isn't you. You only think that's you. Trust me, it's not.
That person is either much better looking or far uglier that you are (don't write in - I don't know which). He or she is either quite a bit stupider or a lot smarter than you. Perhaps they are considerably more graceful or a lot clumsier. Maybe they are more relaxed. Or possibly tenser. You get the idea.
The person in the mirror only vaguely resembles you. It is your vision of you filtered through that sneaky mass of grey matter stuffed between your ears. It is very definitely not you and, and this is important, you will NEVER know the real you. That knowledge will forever elude you.
But that is okay because plenty of other people will get to know the real you and they will either like or hate him or her more or less that you think they like or hate that person you see in the mirror. And that's okay too because, it is very likely that they are so wrapped up in thinking about who they are that they won't be paying too much attention to you.
Hugh Briss
The Celibate Fellow
"They were right about this." he thought. "You do feel more at peace, more in control of your physical being. I feel so much more focussed. Without that distraction I think I'll be able to do some real work. This could be the beginning of a very productive period for me as an artist."
He looked at his watch. It had been 15 minutes.
The Scientist
Once upon a time there was a scientist. His name was Mike and he was very interested in the precise second when someone reached the point of no return tipping back on their chair.
It took him many many years to teach the mice to build their little chairs and many more years to get them to use the little video cameras to tape each other tipping over.
He was a very old man before he had usable data. But that's science for you.
Parker Fysche
A small collection of aphorisms which may prove useful (for what we can't say)
There are few things more tiresome than a bore but one of them is reading a lot of aphorisms.
No man is ever so foolish as when he attempts to remove his pants from a safe deposit box which is not his own using only ice tongs.
Men and women are different but they have one thing in common.
Never exclude your friends from your holiday plans unless they are known for excessive drooling.
He who tries but does not suceed should quickly turn, face the other way and pretend he was doing something else.
I sought God in the Church but found him not. I checked my watch. I was forty-five minutes late.
Love is the axis on which life turns. Hate is the grease that makes it run smoothly. Anger is the wheels on which it rolls. Lust is the engine that makes it move. Greed is the wheel that steers it and Envy is the passenger side window. Nostalgia, obviously, is the rear-view mirror. Reticence, the brakes. Humility, the glove compartment. Desire, the cigarette lighter. Pride, the left turn signal and Incontinence, the hazards. Questions?