Something Else

That last post was okay -- needed, I guess -- but if I access this blog and see it once again at the top, I think I'll go crazy.

The problem is I don't have anything truly profound or even entertaining to offer you right now. I mean, the most exciting thing going now, I guess, is that we're headed to Dallas this weekend for a mini-spring break trip with the kids. As part of that, we're going to see the King Tut exhibit, unfortunately without Steve Martin playing the title role.

In lieu of a bracing personal entry (but I hope one will come soon), here's some quotations I've found lately that have struck my fancy, and might strike yours as well.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

Arthur Schopenhauer

Our democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who are not.

Thomas Jefferson

Only the mediocre are always at their best.

Jean Giraudoux

I began to understand that there were certain talkers — certain girls — whom people liked to listen to, not because of what they, the girls, had to say but because of the delight they took in saying it. A delight in themselves, a shine on their faces a conviction that whatever they were telling was remarkable and that they themselves could not help but give pleasure. There might be other people — people like me — who didn’t concede this, but this was their loss. And people like me would never be the audience these girls were after anyway.

Alice Munro, in “Some Women”

Bureaucrats write memoranda both because they appear to be busy when they are writing and because the memos, once written, immediately become proof that they were busy.

Charles Peters

Last time i saw Count Basie, he was in a wheelchair. They wheeled him up onto the stage, he sits down at the piano, and he gives the downbeat, and that band played like they were in heaven. And right in the middle, the band cuts. He had to take one hand and put the other down on it, and he comes down with one note. And it was the greatest note I ever heard in my life.

Les Paul, father of the electric guitar

When we did "School’s Out," I knew we had just done the national anthem. I’ve become the Francis Scott Key of the last day of school.

Alice Cooper

Staying recently in a South Yorkshire town called Rotherham — described in one guidebook as “murky,” an inadequate word for the place — I was interested to read in the local newspaper how the proprietors of some stores are preventing hooligans from gathering outside to intimidate and rob customers. They play Bach over loudspeakers, and this disperses the youths in short order; they flee the way Count Dracula fled before holy water, garlic flowers, and crucifixes. The proprietors had previously tried a high-pitched noise generator whose mosquito-like whine only those younger than 20 could detect. This method, too, proved effective, but the owners abandoned it out of fear that it might damage the youths’ hearing and infringe upon their human rights, leading to claims for compensation.

Theodore Dalrymple, in the Jan. 29, 2009 issue of City Journal

Remembering Book Row

No comparable substitute has developed [to New York City’s Book Row], no, not even in cyberspace or those overpopulated Internet burbs. Thanks to the broadband interests and proud diversity of the booksellers there, on Book Row there wasn't just a book for every need, mood or taste. Often there was a whole section of applicable books or even an entire bookstore for every taste, mood, need. The variety, independence and heterogeneity of the dealers and their books made Book Row a haven for reading and collecting diversity where Vive la difference meant three cheers for nonconformity. In their place have come drearily homogenized chain stores, a global electronic whirlpool erratically accessible mainly to persistent onliners with superhuman patience for slogging through vast swamps of World Wide Web distractions, and a wistfully few widely scattered individual bookshop survivors.

From Book Row: An Anecdotal and Pictorial History of the Antiquarian Book Trade by Marvin Mondlin and Roy Meador (2003).

The only survivor of the many used bookstores that once populated Book Row in New York City appears to be the Strand Bookstore.

A Smattering of Quotes

"When I was a student, I had two ideas about history, and one of them was that history was about dead men who had done dull things. History was dates and governments and laws and war and money - and dead men. Always dead men.

But I also read historical novels. And I adored them. People in historical novels loved, fought, and struggled to survive. They died violently; they were beset with invaders and famine and plague. They wore splendid clothes or picturesque rags. They performed miracles of courage and strength just to get something to eat. It was from novels that I learned that history was the story of survival: even something that sounded boring, like crop rotation or inheritance law, might be a matter of life and death to a hungry peasant. Novels taught me that history is dramatic. I wanted my students to know that, too."

--Laura Amy Schlitz, from the foreword to her 2008 Newberry Award-winning book Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!

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"... And because in all other monasteries and nunneries all is composed, limited, and regulated by hours, it was decreed that in this new structure there should be neither clock nor dial, but that according to the opportunities and incident occasions, all their hours should be disposed of; for, said Gargantua, the greatest loss of time that I know, is to count the hours. What good comes of it? Nor can there be any greater dotage in the world than for one to guide and direct his courses by the sound of a bell, and not by his own judgment and discretion."

--Rabelais, in Gargantua and Pantagruel

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"There’s no reason to think that reading and writing are about to become extinct, but some sociologists speculate that reading books for pleasure will one day be the province of a special 'reading class,' much as it was before the arrival of mass literacy, in the second half of the 19th century. They warn that it probably won’t regain the prestige of exclusivity; it may just become 'an increasingly arcane hobby.' Such a shift would change the texture of society. If one person decides to watch 'The Sopranos' rather than to read Leonardo Sciascia’s novella To Each His Own, the culture goes on largely as before — both viewer and reader are entertaining themselves while learning something about the Mafia in the bargain. But if, over time, many people choose television over books, then a nation’s conversation with itself is likely to change. A reader learns about the world and imagines it differently from the way a viewer does; according to some experimental psychologists, a reader and a viewer even think differently. If the eclipse of reading continues, the alteration is likely to matter in ways that aren’t foreseeable."

--From "Twilight of the Books," New Yorker, December 24, 2007

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"It has often been said there's so much to be read,
you never can cram all those words in your head.
So the writer who breeds more words than he needs
is making a chore for the reader who reads.
That's why my belief is the briefer the brief is,
the greater the sigh of the reader's relief is."

--Dr. Seuss, aka Theodor Seuss Geisel

A Smattering of Quotes

"The trouble with specialists is that they tend to think in grooves."

--Elaine Morgan

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"In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

--Theodore Roosevelt

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"English was good enough for Jesus Christ and it's good enough for the children of Texas."

--Miriam "Ma" Ferguson, Texas governor 1925-1927

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"In the final analysis, it's true that fame is unimportant. No matter how great a man is, the size of his funeral usually depends on the weather."

--Rosemary Clooney

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"Haydn's sense of humor often came into play during his thirty-year tenure with Prince Esterhazy. The prince had become complacent when listening to Haydn's symphonies, even falling asleep at the performances. This was something that seared the feelings of the diligent composer, especially when the prince emitted a loud snore during a part of the symphony over which Haydn had especially labored. Haydn decided to create a new symphony for the prince, a symphony that he hoped would 'get Prince Esterhazy's attention.' This particular symphony was written with a long slow movement, designed to be so soothing that the prince would surely fall asleep. On the evening of the performance, the prince did indeed drift off. Then, suddenly, a loud chord shattered the serenity of the murmuring movement. The prince awoke with a start and almost fell off his chair! Haydn adeptly gave the piece the name 'Surprise Symphony.'"

--from the Haydn biography on essortment.com

Technology Quotes to Eat Crow By

"Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances."



--Dr. Lee DeForest, "Father of radio and grandfather of television"

"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?"



--Broadcasting mogul David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s

"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."



--Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."



--Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year."



--The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957

"But what is it good for?"



--Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, commenting on the microchip, 1968

"640K ought to be enough for anybody."



--Bill Gates, 1981

Dem Bones, Dem Bones

Here is Muley himself on a recent visit to a medical facility in Dallas, posing with someone he met there. Is this new friend of Muley's:

A) Tiffany Torso, the famous runway model, visiting the diet lab;

B) Tooten Myohn Horn, famed Egyptian pharoah whose tomb was recently pilfered; or

C) Bones McPhalanges, veteran Halloween costume model?

You tell me.

Somewhat Germane Quote of the Day:

"When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap."

--Cynthia Heimel

Can They Do "The Scream" Next?

Muley has been walking softly and carrying a big bottle of Zicam, trying to bat away a nasty cold that has already toyed with most of the other members of the Muley family. I've got some decent post ideas backing up in my brain, but just haven't had the energy yet to sit down and do something thoughtful and cogent. So, here's something flippant and superfluous.

It's another story to bolster my belief that lots of computer geeks have way too much time on their hands. According to a story on the BBC website, the aforementioned geeks (from the University of Amsterdam, where they've most likely invented the world's first wooden basketball sneakers) have figured out a way to use a computer to answer the long-debated question, "Just what the heck is the Mona Lisa smiling about, anyway?" While we still don't know who or what caused her sly little crinkle of the lips, the experts have determined that, by analyzing her smile, Mona was "83% happy, 9% disgusted, 6% fearful and 2% angry." Personally, I think that the rationale behind that conclusion is 73% silly, 17% misdirected, 8% questionable and %2 somehow causing my big toe to itch.

Quote of the Day:

"My all time favorite similes … come from the hardboiled-detective fiction of the 40s and 50s, and the literary descendants of the dime-dreadful writers. These favorites include … 'I lit a cigarette [that] tasted like a plumber’s handkerchief' ( by Raymond Chandler)."

--Stephen King, in On Writing

It's a Clock. It's Cool.

I found this today on John Gushue's blog. It's called a timeline clock. Moving from right to left, it shows the movement of seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years...you get the idea. I guess you could use this as a screensaver if you wanted to, but I'd probably just sit there staring at it all day, getting nothing done.

Not that that's a bad thing, mind you.

Quote of the Day:

"I'm not going to vacuum 'til Sears makes one you can ride on."

--Rosanne Barr

A Smattering of Quotes

I've been sort of an ADHD kinda guy lately when it comes to my reading -- haphazardly looking through all sorts of volumes and pulling out items to make a very disparate gumbo that has probably not enlightened me much, but has left me with a few tasty quotes to share.

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I've seen a lot of references to the French writer-philosopher Jacques Barzun lately in books of conservative thought, and I finally decided to check out a book of his essays, The Culture We Deserve, to see what he's made of. This was a quote from an essay titled "Exeunt the Humanities." It deals with something I see more and more of these days -- people devoting enormous amounts of time becoming almost obsessive experts on narrow little topics and hobbies, while remaining ignorant of a lot of seemingly "big picture" things in the world around them.

"The danger is that we shall become a nation of pedants. I use the word literally and democratically to refer to the millions of people who are moved by a certain kind of passion in their pastimes as well as in their vocations. In both parts of their lives this passion comes out in shoptalk. I have in mind both the bird watchers and nature lovers: the young people who collect records and follow the lives of pop singers and movie stars; I mean the sort of knowledge possessed by "buffs" and "fans" of all species -- the baseball addicts and opera goers, the devotees of railroad trains and the collectors of objects, from first editions to netsuke. They are pedants not just because they know and recite an enormous quantity of facts -- if a school required them to learn as much they would scream against tyranny. It is not the extent of their information that appalls; it is the absence of any reflection upon it, any sense of relation between it and them and the world. Nothing is brought in from outside for contrast or comparison; no perspective is gained from the top of their monstrous factual pile; no generalities emerge to lighten the sameness of their endeavor."

--Jacques Barzun

If I am in danger of becoming one such obsessive pedant, it might be due to buying and collecting far too many old books. Here's another (more positive) way I found to look at my bibliophilia.

"Collecting books is like collecting other people's minds, like having people on the shelves -- only, you can just put them away when you want to."

--John Prizeman

There's probably as many definitions of creativity as there are people who claim to have that elusive gift in spades. Here's one description of what a creative person should look like that I found interesting.

"Creative people: 1, have their energy field accessible; 2, have the ability to tap and release unconscious and preconscious thought; 3, are able to withstand being thought of as abnormal or eccentric; 4, are more sensitive; 5, have a richer fantasy life and greater involvement in daydreaming; 6, are enthusiastic and impulsive; 7, show signs of synaesthesia (e.g., tasting color, seeing sound, hearing smells, etc.); 8, show different brain wave patterns than the less creative, especially during creative activity; 9, when confronted with novelty of design, music, or ideas, they get excitied and involved (less creative people get suspicious and hostile); 10, when given a new solution to a problem, they get enthused, suggest other ideas, overlook details and problems (less creative students analyze the defects rather than explore potentials."

--E. Paul Torrence and Laura K. Hall, Journal of Creative Behavior, 1980.

I must admit that in my focused daily trek to check off my "to do" list, too often I end up walking with my eyes watching my feet, intent on getting from point A to point B, and fail to see the divine light Thomas Merton talks about here.

"Life is this simple: we are living in a world that is absolutely transparent, and God is shining through it all the time. This is not just a fable or a nice story. It is true. If we abandon ourselves to God and forget ourselves, we see it sometimes, and we see it maybe frequently. God shows Himself everywhere, in everything -- in people and in things and in nature and in events...we cannot be without Him. It's impossible. The only thing is, we don't see it."

--Thomas Merton, 20th century Catholic monk

Besides not making enough time for God, I find it difficult to make as much time as I'd like to spend enriching my mind. As I plan to cut my overgrown back yard this week, I ponder this quote and wonder if its author managed to sell it to his wife.

"A man who wants time to read and write must let the grass grow long."

--Sloan Wilson

Maybe all I really need to do is listen to this next bit of wisdom.

"I think people don't place a high enough value on how much they are nurtured by doing whatever it is that totally absorbs them."

--Jean Shinoda Bolen

I love the NIV translation of the Bible, but I've recently done a little reading in the English Standard Version (ESV) translation, and have become a fan of some of its simple but eloquent prose. Here's a familiar verse in the ESV that I think sums up a Christian's marching orders quite well.

"Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life."

--Philippians 2:14-16 (ESV)

This is one of the best definitions of faith I've come across.

"Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservation."

--Elton Trueblood, Puritan minister

Now for some fun quotes to wrap things up. First, who do you think was the most famous person in this encounter?

"I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph."

--Shirley Temple

Have you read or heard anything about Joe Simpson, the stage father of singer Jessica Simpson? Some people have said Jessica's dad is downright creepy, and this quote from Dad about his famous daughter's...um, assets...might be one reason they think that.

"She just is sexy. If you put her in a T-shirt or you put her in a bustier, she's sexy in both. She's got double D's! You can't cover those suckers up!"

--Joe Simpson, on daughter Jessica

Finally, you might not know that when country singer Willie Nelson was starting his career in the 1950s, he worked for a time as a country DJ at station KCNC in Fort Worth. Here's how Willie opened his radio show back then. I wish I could have heard this live coming over the car speakers at the drive-in.

"This is your ol' cotton pickin', snuff dippin', tobacco chewin', coffee pot dodgin', dumplin' eatin', frog giggin' hillbilly."

A Smattering of Quotes

In lieu of something original, here are some more quotes I've recently collected. Hope you enjoy them.

Since America's favorite pastime has begun again, here's one of my favorite movie quotes about baseball. It's said by an over-the-hill player remembering his short time in the major leagues.

"Yeah, I was in the show. I was in the show for 21 days once -- the 21 greatest days of my life. You know, you never handle your luggage in the show, somebody else carries your bags. It was great. You hit white balls for batting practice, the ballparks are like cathedrals, the hotels all have room service, and the women all have long legs and brains."

--Crash Davis, the minor league baseball player portrayed by Kevin Costner in "Bull Durham" (1988)

This quote from E.B. White (the author of Charlotte's Web and other classics, was bandied about a lot as an example of eerie prophecy in the days immediately following 9-11:

“A single flight of planes no bigger than a wedge of geese can quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers, crumble the bridges, turn the underground passages into lethal chambers, cremate millions...Of all targets New York has a certain clear priority. In the mind of whatever perverted dreamer might loose the lightning, New York must hold a steady, irresistible charm.”

––from E.B. White’s essay “Here is New York,” 1949

I will now reveal my secret:

"Writing is a way of talking without being interrupted."

--Jules Renard

The rich, they say, are different from you and me. Here's one example why:

"I go to Bloomingdale's, to the fourth floor, and I buy 2,000 of the black bras, 2,000 of the beige, 2,000 of the white. And I ship them around between the homes and the boat and that's the end of it for maybe half a year when I have to do it all over again."

--Ivana Trump

I'm reading more and more Wendell Berry these days, and he's making me think on a number of things.

"We are destroying our country -- I mean our country itself, our land...Most of us are still too sane to piss in our own cistern, but we allow others to do so and we reward them for it. We reward them so well, in fact, that those who piss in our cistern are wealthier than the rest of us."

--Wendell Berry

I continue to give away my secrets:

"Editor: a person employed by a newspaper, whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed."

--Elbert Hubbard

Finally, every now and then Hollywood celebrities let down the facade:

"With my sunglasses on, I'm Jack Nicholson. Without them, I'm fat and 60."

--Jack Nicholson

Random Observations and Trivial Events

ORLANDOPHOBIA

While Mrs. Muley and I were getting ready for work this morning the Tony Orlando and Dawn song “Knock Three Times” came on the radio. If you remember, this is the song where Tony is in love with the woman who lives below him in an apartment complex. He instructs her to knock three times on her ceiling if she wants him (probably causing plaster dust to rain down in her eyes), or to knock “twice on the pipe” if she thinks he's a creepy stalker type and wants him to lay off. (I’m assuming “the pipe” here refers to a radiator and not a bong, but then again, it was the 1970s).

Mrs. Muley and I got to talking about how Tony apparently has a real hangup with having women tell him how they feel about him face-to-face. Remember his biggest hit, “Tie a Yellow Ribbon (‘Round the Old Oak Tree)”? Here, he was too chicken to face the woman he’d left behind when he went to prison for an undisclosed crime, in case she didn’t want his convict carcass around anymore. So, Tony came up with the yellow ribbon gimmick to save him any disappointment in person, leaving him to cry quietly like a proverbial schoolgirl in front of a busload of strangers if he was rebuffed. Or maybe he'd get mad and knock off another liquor store. Whatever.

Anyway, I’m surprised that Tony Orlando and Dawn never released a song later in their short career with a title like “Skywrite If I Am Right for You,” where Tony would require his love interest to hire a cropduster to compose a message in the sky if the girl he liked wanted to spend time with him.

Don't let my heart be lost
Let's see that plane exhaust
And skywrite if I am right for you

JUST IN TIME FOR EASTER

I was searching awhile back for a good “goofy” horror movie to watch sometime (because that's the kind of guy I am), and I think I might have found it. It’s a little flick from 1972 called “Night of the Lepus.” The tagline makes it sound oh so scary: “They were born that tragic moment when science made its great mistake... now from behind the shroud of night they come, a scuttling, shambling horde of creatures destroying all in their path.” Of course, the audience eventually learns that this bloodthirsty, scuttling horde is actually a horde of RABBITS (called “lepus” in Latin).

The plot description says a farmer was having trouble with rabbits eating his crops, so he hires some wacko scientist to help him get rid of them. The scientist, of course, injects the cute little bunnies with hormones and genetically altered blood, which goes bad, and the rabbits mutate into creatures the size of wolves who snack on cows, horses and…humans. Oh, the horror.

This movie sounds fun because it appears that they spent no more than $12.95 making it, even though they had to pay for the acting talents of past-their-prime stars such as Janet Leigh (shower girl from “Psycho”) and DeForrest Kelley (Bones from “Star Trek”). I wonder if there’s a character in the movie named Jim, so Kelley’s character could say the familiar “He’s dead, Jim” line as he views a body covered with bloody tufts of fur and the gnawed ends of carrots.

The top reason I want to see this, however, is a scene I just have to experience for myself. Some authority type supposedly runs to a drive-in movie theatre, shouts, “Ladies and gentlemen, attention! There is a herd of killer rabbits headed this way!,” and everyone automatically believes him and runs away screaming. Oh man, call Netflix and pass the popcorn.

Today's quote:

"You can't get spoiled if you do your own ironing."

--Meryl Streep

A Smattering of Quotes

Like someone who walks down the corner, expecting just to buy a bottle of milk at the grocery store, and ends up days later hundreds of miles from home, wandering around the desert, I have taken an unplanned vacation from blogging this past week or so. Nothing tragic, mind you, just one of my occasional lapses. For those of you kind enough to continue to stop in here, I want to share with you some of my favorites from the quotes I've collected over the past week. I promise a regular post soon (yeah, right, we're on pins and needles, Muley...)

"Human language is like a cracked kettledrum on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, when what we long to do is make music that will move the stars to pity."

--Gustave Flaubert
in Madame Bovary

(This has to be the lament of every writer, no matter how famous)

"Art is the only way to run away without leaving home."

--Twyla Tharp

(So true)

"A gentleman is simply a patient wolf."

--Lana Turner

(I guess this is a somewhat understandable sentiment from a woman who was married seven times)

"Opera is when a guy gets stabbed in the back and, instead of bleeding, he sings."

--Ed Gardner

(In Elvis movies, he would sing, play guitar and ride a motorcycle as well)

"Very nice, though there are dull stretches."

--Antoine de Rivarol

(His classic, snarky review of another writer's two-line poem)

"English was good enough for Jesus Christ and it's good enough for the children of Texas."

--Miriam "Ma" Ferguson
Texas governor, 1925-27 and 1933-35

(Hey Dixie Chicks, I'm proud of our governors here in Texas, even the dumb ones)

And, today's favorite...

"If it hadn't been for books we would have been entirely at the mercy of sex."

--Anatole Broyard

Escapist Dating

If you turn on your radio these days for longer than 15 minutes at a stretch, or watch at least one TV commercial break -- any hour, any channel -- then you've no doubt heard the ads for a dating service that supposedly makes you answer a 2,675-question "personality" test before you dip your toe in the rippling pool of romance. This incredibly thorough test, we are told, is why this certain company's matchups are so well-made.

Well, I can't argue with the company's success, but a little birdie told me something the other day. That big, fancy questionnaire is just a marketing gimmick. I don't know this as fact, but from what I hear, the real survey that potential customers are asked to fill out is much shorter, and is supposedly based on the lyrics of a popular 1970s love song.

In a plain brown envelope left under my doormat, I was provided with a purloined copy of these alternate questions. And even though I'm already married and not in the market for a date, I'll answer the questions as if I were, just to give you an idea of how this thing works.

Ready?

1. Do you like Pina Coladas? Haven't had one in 20 years, but I'd have to say...yes.

2. Do you like getting caught in the rain? First of all, please note that I have never dated waterfowl and don't intend to start now. Having said that, since "getting caught" implies being unprepared, I'd have to reply that it's all a question of logistics. Am I late for a meeting? Is it cold outside? Am I without a raincoat or umbrella? Is it during really bad weather, such as a lightning storm or hurricane? Am I buck naked? If the answer to any of those is "yes," then my answer is "no." Otherwise, sure, I'm game.

3. Are you not into yoga? Shouldn't that be, "Are you into yoga?" Awkward sentence structure. But, my answer is, yes and no. I think yoga's probably good for you, but the two or three yoga DVDs on my shelf remain unwatched.

4. Do you have half a brain? Whoa, the standards are high at this place. Half, as in 50 percent? I can answer without hesitation: I believe so.

5. Do you like making love at midnight? Time of day has never been a hindrance for me, unless I'm actually asleep at the time. ...in the dunes of the cape? Well now, this changes things a bit. You mean, like in the sand in the pitch dark, out in public? Hmmm. Let me think about this. Sand in places sand shouldn't be. Pieces of broken shells poking my skin. Hungry crabs eyeing me like a dead fish. Globs of beach tar. Elderly couples out late at night with a flashlight and a metal detector, discovering us and then clutching at their wildly beeping pacemakers. I think my answer is...heck no. Now, leave the time and general location the same, but move us inside to a nice master suite overlooking the ocean, and you're on.

6. Are you not much into health food? Who taught these guys grammar? Again, I need more details. Are we talking wheat bread, yogurt and granola? Well, sure. Or are we talking dried sea slime, pine cones and otter cheese for breakfast? Then, no.

7. Are you into champagne? Apparently, the guys who wrote this really like to knock back the hooch. Maybe it helps them numb their gluteus maximi after all those crab bites. My answer is a conditional yes. If I'm at a New Year's Eve party, and free champagne is available, and doesn't come out of a can, I will sip a glass to help ring in the new. Otherwise, it's not my favorite beverage.

So, there it is, folks. If you're looking for one of those boring, traditional dates where you go eat dinner and see a movie, then this place probably isn't for you. But, if you're looking for half-witted members of the opposite sex who pig out on junk food and wander drunk around the beach naked until they spot a flabby but willing partner flailing around in a downpour, then give them a buzz.

Quotes of the Day:

Love is an exploding cigar we willingly smoke.

--Lynda Barry

I'm dating a woman now who, evidently, is unaware of it.

--Gary Shandling

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

From what I can tell, there are those of you out there who have a wonderful dream life. When you slip into the arms of Morpheus, you frolic in a playground of wonderful images, with storylines that see you winning the Nobel Prize, becoming the leader of the free world, running off to tropical islands with Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt, vanquishing your enemies and fulfilling your wildest dreams.

Unfortunately, I am not one of you. For the most part, whatever dreams I have I never remember after I wake. And the few dreams I do remember are anything but voluptuous wish fulfillment.

Let me give you some examples. For some strange reason, I have been able to remember dreams I had the past two nights. I will give you the synopsis of each recent dream to let you judge where my brain goes while I’m at rest.

On Sunday night, the dream involved me and my best friend from high school. For some reason, we were to meet at an airport to pick up a mutual acquaintance of ours who was arriving on a plane. As I prepared to leave for the airport to meet my friend, I realized that my car had been stolen. A second car in my driveway turned out to be a rusted old junker that no longer ran. There was a third car, this one a luxurious sedan parked in my garage, but I learned that this car belonged to a door-to-door salesman who at the moment was inside the house trying to sell something to my parents. A time share, maybe. In short, I had no way to get to the airport in time.

I then decided to call my friend on his cell phone to tell him I wouldn’t be able to make it. But then I realized I didn’t know his cell phone number, and I spent untold minutes of my dream trying to track down the number – looking through phone books and address books, calling information, but having no luck. When I finally remembered that his cell phone number was programmed into my cell phone, I began to call it, and that’s when I woke up.

Last night, my dream began a little better. My wife, my daughters and I were sailing in a small sailboat on a beautiful body of water on a sunny, perfect day. This was great for a few minutes, but apparently my brain panicked when it realized that it was letting slip a perfectly wonderful dream scenario. Therefore, my family and I for some unexplained reason docked our sailboat, then went next door to another marina to rent a second sailboat on which to return to the water.

This second marina was the Marina from Hell. After waiting in long, slowly moving lines, I finally was served by a man who must have been in his 90s. He first had me sit down and watch a long video on boat safety, kind of the maritime version of those old driver’s ed films. During this video, the old man kept clutching his chest from apparent heart seizures, and we’d stop the video each time until he felt better.

After the video was over, the man insisted on teaching me how to tie some knots that I’d apparently need for the rigging of my sailboat. For some reason, I had an incredible amount of difficulty learning these knots, and the old man kept having to rest because of his frequent heart pains.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, I was able to get a boat rented, but once again I had to wait in a huge line until something became available. When my family and I finally got into a boat, there was another delay while some guy who looked like Grizzly Adams went over the safety features and took time to place us in different positions in the boat until he was satisfied.

As my family and I expectantly set sail onto the peaceful waters, I woke up.

When I told Mrs. Muley about my two dreams, and I asked her what she thought they meant, she told me, “Boy, you are one frustrated guy.” She knows that these are the kinds of dreams I have all the time.

Is she right? Am I secretly frustrated? Why is it that I never have dreams where things go right, where I am enjoying pleasures, licit or illicit, and where I reach goals and conquer enemies and doubts? And why is it that the minute my dreams do start to get good, my brain either introduces a disaster scenario, or wakes me up?

Maybe tonight I’ll dream that I win the Texas Lottery, but then realize that I left the ticket in the jeans that just got washed in the laundry. Yeah, that sounds like a good one.

Today's quote:

"Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives."

--William Dement

Twelve Flags, Seven Days, One Hearse

As I mentioned in my previous post, the Muley family took some time off over Spring Break to do a little traveling around Texas. We went with another family from our church we're good friends with and who have girls around the same age as our two daughters.

We made the daring, possibly insane, decision to visit both of the Six Flags Over Texas parks in the state within seven days of each other. We began with a one-day trip to Six Flags in Arlington, where we had to go to pick up our new season passes. Six Flags must be in need of some quick cash, because they have a deal now where you can buy a season pass for the price of a one-day admission. Consequently, there were a bajillion people at the park, most of them new season pass holders like us.

The funniest sight I saw in the Arlington park was one of the musical acts. This was during spring break, and apparently someone in park management figured, "Hey, we'll have oodles of head-bangin' college and high school kids here on Spring Break. We need a band they'll like." So, they hired an aging baby boomer heavy metal band that played songs such as "White Wedding" at a volume that almost jammed the radar at nearby DFW Airport. Here is the band in their full rockin' glory:


Actually, they weren't all that bad. The big problem was that the park officials apparently decided it was okay to place this 100 decibel gang of bangers onstage at the edge of the young kiddie section of the park, right between the log flume ride and the Spongebob Squarepants 3-D Theatre. As a result, there weren't too many screaming college chicks around rushing the stage, but there were a lot of deaf old people and exhausted moms with baby buggies, glad for a chance to sit on a bench, who made up the crowd. Don't they look as though they might form a mosh pit and start tearing off their clothes any minute?


Have you gotten "fed up" with the high prices they charge for food at amusement parks? We have, so we were looking for culinary bargains at Six Flags. We finally found a great deal on some incredibly inexpensive food near the koi pond.


We returned home, and after a few days back in Waco we took off again, this time to Six Flags Fiesta Texas in San Antonio. This is the best Six Flags park in Texas, in our opinion, because the rides are better and it's usually less crowded. There was nothing weird to report at Fiesta Texas, except that they asked me to join their latest publicity campaign. (Uh, I'm the one on the left...)


I did get one final laugh out of the trip, although it wasn't at Fiesta Texas. I was doing some browsing at a Borders bookstore while the rest of the crew was out clothes shopping, and when I left and got in my car, I noticed an old hearse across from me in the parking lot.


Now, a retired hearse being put to use as personal transport is not all that uncommon, but what got me to laughing was the vanity license plate attached to the front:


Today's quote:

"It is impossible to travel faster than the speed of light, and certainly not desirable, as one's hat keeps blowing off."

--Woody Allen

A Smattering of Quotes

The Muley family is getting ready to embark on a long-anticipated Spring Break trip, so I won't be around to check my blog for awhile. And since I've been so busy this week trying to "get ahead" at work, I've not allowed the contemplative, goofy part of my brain to have much of a chance to mull over something that could be crafted into a well-written, witty post.

In place of said well-written post, I'd like to offer you a few quotations to ponder. As I've said before, I collect quotations and enjoy reading them. Here's a few of the ones I've collected in the past few weeks I'd like to share:

"There is not one square inch of the entire creation about which Jesus Christ does not cry out, 'This is mine! This belongs to me!'"

--Abraham Kuyper

"Unless we can bring men back to enjoying the daily life which moderns call a dull life, our whole civilization will be in ruins in about 15 years...Unless we can make daybreak and daily bread and the creative secrets of labor interesting in themselves, there will fall on our civilization a fatigue which is the one disease from which civilizations do not recover."

--G.K. Chesterton

"An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way."

--Charles Bukowski

"The world is changing. Those of us who automatically deal out politeness words in suitable contexts are becoming uncomfortably aware that we earn less credit for it than we used to. It is becoming obvious that we are the exception rather than the rule, and that our beautiful manners fall on stony ground. People who serve the public are becoming impervious to rudeness, either because they are young and don't care, or because they are older and have learned to toughen up or suffer a nervous breakdown. Either way, if you attempt to sympathise with a shop-worker who has just served a rude customer, the response is rarely the one you expect. Mainly you will get a blank shrug, which carries the worrying implication: this person doesn't care whether customers are polite or not. This makes it quite hard to go through the ensuing politeness display without feeling self-conscious, or even quaint."

--Lynne Truss
in Talk to the Hand

"I am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it."

--Edith Sitwell

"If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?"

--Abraham Lincoln

Rejected Romance Novel Titles #5

I'm working up a few movie reviews, but until I finish them, here's another in my series of romance covers you'll never see. This north-of-the-border bodice-ripper might have been made into a movie with Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald back in the 1940s.

(By the way, I am not the creative graphic artist who came up with these parodies. I pulled them off a web site somewhere, and if I had saved the URL I would give it to you).



Today's Quote:

"Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise."

--Margaret Atwood
in Cat's Eye

When Can We Call Ourselves Artists?

My teenage daughter Rebecca, an aspiring artist, found a book in the shelves on a recent Barnes & Noble excursion called The Art Spirit by Robert Henri. Henri was apparently a famous painter and painting instructor, and the book is a collection of his comments collected from his lectures and letters, published back in 1923. I looked through the book and found a number of thought-provoking observations. Here's how the book opens up:

Art when really understood is the province of every human being. It is simply a question of doing things, anything, well. It is not an outside, extra thing.

When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressing creature. He becomes interesting to other people. He disturbs, upsets, enlightens, and he opens ways for a better understanding. Where those who are not artists are trying to close the book, he opens it, shows there are still more pages possible.

The world would stagnate without him, and the world would be beautiful with him; for he is interesting to himself and he is interesting to others. He does not have to be a painter or sculptor to be an artist. He can work in any medium. He simply has to find the gain in the work itself, not outside it.

Museums of art will not make a country an art country. But where there is the art spirit there will be precious works to fill museums. Better still, there will be the happiness that is in the making. Art tends towards balance, order, judgment of relative values, the laws of growth, the economy of living -- very good things for anyone to be interested in.

Here's another passage that leaped out at me:

There are moments in our lives, there are moments in a day, when we seem to see beyond the usual -- become clairvoyant. We reach then into reality. Such are the moments of our greatest happiness. Such are the moments of our greatest wisdom.

It is in the nature of all people to have these experiences; but in our time and under the conditions of our lives, it is only a rare few who are able to continue in the experience and find expression for it.

At such times there is a song going on within us, a song to which we listen. It fills us with surprise. We marvel at it. We would continue to hear it. But few are capable of holding themselves in the state of listening to their own song. Intellectuality steps in and as the song within us is of the utmost sensitiveness, it retires in the presence of the cold, material intellect. It is aristocratic and will not associate itself with the commonplace -- and we fall back and become our ordinary selves. Yet we live in the memory of these songs which in moments of intellectual inadvertence have been possible to us. They are the pinnacles of our experience and it is the desire to express these intimate sensations, this song from within, which motivates the masters of all art.

I felt a pang of knowing guilt reading this one:

The habit of digression -- lack of continued interest -- want of fixed purpose, is an almost general failing. It is too easy to drift and the habit of letting oneself drift begets drifting. The power of concentration is rare and must be sought and cultivated, and prolonged work on one subject must not be mistaken for concentration. Prolonged work on one subject may be simply prolonged digression, which is a useless effort, as it is to no end.

And here's one final thought from Robert Henri:

The true artist regards his work as a means of talking with men, of saying his say to himself and to others. It is not a question of pay. It is not a question of willing acceptance on the part of the public. If he is welcomed and paid it is very good, but whether or no he must say his say.

Top Movie Quotes

This just in – the American Film Institute has chosen what it says are the top 100 quotes from American movies. Here are the top 10 quotes:

1. "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind.

2. “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse.” Marlon Brando in The Godfather.

3. The “I coulda been a contender” speech. Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront.

4. “Toto, I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz.



5. “Here’s looking at you, kid.” Humphrey Bogart to Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca.

6. “Go ahead, make my day.” Clint Eastwood in Sudden Impact.

7. “All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up." Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard.

8. “May the Force be with you.” Harrison Ford in Star Wars.

9. “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.” Bette Davis in All About Eve.

10. “You talking to me?” Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver.

Can't really quibble with any of these, although I thought it was Alec Guinness who said that line in Star Wars, not Harrison Ford. Oh, well. I wonder how one of my favorite movie quotes -- "Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life" from Animal House -- fared. I'll go to the AFI website to find out. [Looks at website] Nope, it didn't make it, although "Toga! Toga!" from the same movie made it at No. 82.

Also making the list: such classics as "There's no crying in baseball," "You had me at hello," "Bond. James Bond," "Rosebud," "I'm the king of the world!" and one of the stupidest lines ever, "Love is never having to say you're sorry."

If you're interested, here is a news article on the subject.

UPDATE: The Nightfly, as usual, has made some very intelligent observations on my post through a comment. I'll share his words with you here to give those of you interested in this topic additional fat to chew:

"The entire list of 400 nominees is in this pdf file. 'Fat, drunk, and stupid...' makes that list, as does 'Nothing's over until WE say it is!'

Overall, the nominee list was (to my mind) pretty weak - often the best lines from a particular movie don't make it. Examples - 'Game over, man! Game over!' from Aliens; the 'Cats and dogs living together' speech and 'Listen! Do you smell something?' from Ghostbusters; 'Who are these guys?' from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid; 'My God! It's full of stars!' from 2001... Caddyshack and The Ten Commandments could have their own category here.

And the movies entirely omitted? A travesty. No 'Holy Grail.' No 'Chariots of Fire.' No 'Manchurian Candidate.' No 'Quiet Man.' No 'Man for All Seasons.'

By the way, 'May the Force be with you' was said by almost everyone, including Han (it's the last thing he says before Luke takes off in the X-Wing to go blow up the Death Star). It was surprising, however, that they went with him instead of Alec Guinness. Nothing personal, but I'm just that age... I could pretty much write the script from memory right now."

Lost in Transaction

Now and then I hear someome lament the fact that "Americans don't make anything anymore," that all of the fine products we used to produce at home are now made overseas, usually by cheap sweatshop labor.

I decided that one way to test this theory was to take a quick inventory of the products I had on my person today –– what I am wearing and what I have in my pockets. I was surprised, to say the least, at learning the provenance of my possessions:

Shirt: China
Belt: China
Pants: Mexico
Underwear: Pakistan
Socks: Pakistan
Shoes: China
Wallet: Italy
Pen: Japan
Pocket notebook: China
Reading glasses: China
Comb: USA
Watch: Japan

Except for my body (which rolled off the assembly line in Houston, Texas) and my $1 Ace comb, the only things I have on my person today that were made in the USA are the coins in my pocket and the bills in my wallet. If we suddenly banned all imports, I'd have to walk around naked, relentlessly combing my hair and trying to decide on an orfice in which to stash my money.

I'm for free markets in general, but this is sad all the same.

Feel free to replicate my experiment. Take a quick inventory. How do you fare?

Quote of the day:

"Produce! Produce! Were it but the pitifullest infinitesimal fraction of a product, produce it in God's name! 'Tis the utmost thou has in thee: out with it, then."

--Thomas Carlyle